PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

Addition of chemical binders such as lime and cement improves the strength and stiffness of fine grained soils. However, the treated soils exhibit brittle stress-strain behaviour. Inclusion of randomly oriented discrete fibers in the soil-binder mixture changes its brittle behaviour into ductile behaviour. Most synthetic fibers, however, tend to get entangled and cannot be easily separated from one another. Therefore, it is difficult to realize soil-binder-fiber mixtures in which the fibers are distributed uniformly throughout the mass. This issue has been an impediment in the utilization of the positive modification in the behaviours of soils and soil-binder mixtures by the fibers. The present study aims to address the limitations in using fibers as soil reinforcement. Further, it also aims to investigate the use of synthetic mesh or net elements as an alternative type of soil reinforcement. The paper presents the experimental study on a fine grained soil. Lime has been chosen as the binder due to its low cost and the scarcity of fiber reinforced soil studies in which lime has been used as a binder. The main experimental program is a series of unconfined compression tests on samples prepared using untreated soil, soil-reinforcement mixture, soil-lime mixture, and soil-lime-reinforcement mixture. The lime treated samples were cured up to 120 days at laboratory temperature. The results demonstrate the combinational effects of lime and discrete reinforcement elements on the behaviour and mechanical properties of the soil. The performances of the fiber and mesh element reinforcements have also been compared.