Stabilization of Silty Sand Soil Using Textile Material

The word sandy soil represents a soil which consist of more amount of sand particles and small amount of clay and silt particles. Sandy soil is generally found in western grads, coastal areas. The soil profile in coastal area often consists of sandy soil extended to a depth of 3 to 4 m from the ground level underlies by clay soil of medium consistency. The very low shearing resistance of foundation bed causes local as well as punching shear failure this type of soil profile found coastal area of cochin in Kerala. sandy soil also consists of low plasticity, low bearing capacity and high moisture content, hence it is very essential to stabilize the sandy soil. Soil stabilization is one of most important for the construction which is widely used in connection with road pavement and foundation construction because it improves the engineering properties of soil such as strength, volume stability and durability. The use of hair-sized polypropylene fibers in sandy soil stabilization applications has been popular in soil stabilization projects for its low cost compared with other stabilization agents. These materials have a high resistance towards chemical and biological degradation and do not cause leaching in the soil. The main objective of this study is to investigate the use of waste fiber materials in geotechnical applications and to evaluate the effects of polyester and polypropylene fibers on shear strength of unsaturated sandy soil. The results obtained are compared for the two samples and inferences are drawn towards the usability and effectiveness of fiber reinforcement as a stabilizer for deep foundation or raft foundation, road pavement as a cost effective approach. As the polyester and polypropylene fiber produce the tensile property it helps in the increase of strength of sandy soil. When polyester and polypropylene fiber which is a good reinforcement has well as binder used in different percentage with sandy soil as a stabilizer, the strength of the sandy soil has been evaluated by unconfined compressive testing and the result shows enormous increased in shear strength. For both polyester and polypropylene fiber it gives good result. But use of polypropylene fiber in percentage gives good shear strength compare to the polyester fiber.