The Compressibility of Clayey Soils Reinforced with Fiberglass

During the prior three decades numerous research works presented to investigate the behavior of reinforced soil. All these studies indicated that the use of reinforcements will increase the bearing capacity and reduce the settlement of soil foundations. The modern soil engineering is concentrating on the using of the reinforcements like metal strips and synthetic fabrics. The reinforcement of soil by separated fibers is still a relatively new technique in geotechnical projects. This research presents an experimental study on the reinforcement by glass-fiber for treating the swelling of clayey soil. Different ratios of fiberglass have been mixed with the soil (0.0 %, 0.5 %, 1 % and 2 %). The objective of this research includes studying the compressibility of clayey soil reinforced with fiber glass. The tests have been done to understand the effect of the fiberglass on the soil and check the validity of using the fiberglass to avoiding the use of the soil from elsewhere. The study showed that the swelling coefficient decreases with increasing the ratio of glass fiber. Also the reason of not to increase the proportion of fiber over 2 % is the difficulty of mixing with the soil. The results of this research show that there is no excessive difference in the improvement results between the ratio of 1 %and 2 %ratio of fiberglass, and as recommendation from this research the mixing 1 % from fiberglass with clayey soil could improve its compressibility and reducing the swelling potential.