A Study on Soil Stabilization using Cement and Coir Fibres

In India the soils available in coastal regions and in arid regions are expansive in nature and are found to be expansive for construction purposes. Soil stabilization provides a capping layer thereby increases the CBR of the soil to the desired level. The cement and coir fibre are used here as stabilization additives. The usage of the above coir fibre materials in civil engineering field has led to the development of new techniques particularly in stabilizing the soils. Studies were carried out to evaluate improvement of CBR values by the use of cement and randomly distributed coir fibre separately and the combination of both. The results clearly indicates that, 1.5 % cement and 0.5 % coir fibre have noticeable influence on CBR value of expansive soils compared to the results obtained on cement, and coir fibre materials used separately. This is due to the change in brittle behaviour of the soil to ductile behaviour.