STRENGTH EVALUATION OF LATERITE SOIL STABILIZED USING POLYMER FIBERS

Stabilization of soil using fibers is one of the effective techniques to improve the strength of soils and thereby increasing its load bearing capacity making it more appropriate in the manufacture of compressed stabilized earth blocks (CSEB). This paper aims to evaluate the strength of locally available laterite soil stabilized using available fiber as stabilizer, which is classified as clayey silt. The performance of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottle fibers and Polypropylene (PP) sack fibers are separately analyzed for its impact on the unconfined compressive strength of the soil. Tests were conducted on various fiber-soil ratios in four percentage levels such as 0, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.2 to determine the optimum fiber content. The experimental analysis suggests that laterite soil stabilized with optimum PP (sack) fiber content provides better performance than the laterite soil stabilized with optimum PET (bottle) fiber content. The results indicate that, the Polypropylene sack fibers are more optimal and efficient stabilizer for the laterite soil and were selected as the constituent for developing CSEBs. This study also contributes to effective soil waste management as a befitting sustainable technique to solve current environmental crisis as well.