Soil Stabilization Using Waste Shredded Rubber Tyre Chips
Construction of engineering structures on weak or soft soil is considered as unsafe. Improvement of load bearing capacity of the soil may be undertaken by a variety of ground improvement techniques. In the present investigation, shredded rubber from waste has been chosen as the reinforcement material and cement as binding agent which was randomly included into the soil at three different percentages of fibre content, i.e. 5% 10% and 15% by weight of soil. The investigation has been focused on the strength behaviour of soil reinforced with randomly included shredded rubber fibre. The samples were subjected to California bearing ratio and unconfined compression tests. The tests have clearly shown a significant improvement in the shear strength and bearing capacity parameters of the studied soil. The results obtained are compared with unreinforced samples and inferences are drawn towards the usability and effectiveness of fiber reinforcement as a replacement for deep or raft foundation and on pavement subgrade soil as a cost effective approach. The low strength and high compressible soft clay soils were found to improve by addition of shredded rubber and cement. It can be concluded that shredded rubber fibre can be considered as a good earth reinforcement material.