Amin Chegenizadeh - PhD candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, Perth
Hamid Nikraz - Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

Composite soils have been widely used in geotechnical engineering applications, especially in slopes,embankment dam and landfills. This paper aims to study effect of fiber inclusion on compactioncharacteristic of composite soil (i.e. silty sand composite). A series of laboratory tests carried out to evaluate fiber effect on optimum water content and maximum dry unit weight of composite soils. Silty sand was selected as soil part of the composite and plastic fiber was used as reinforcement. The fiberparameters differed from one test to another, as fiber length varied from 10 mm to 25mm and fiber content were selected as 0.1% and 0.3%. For each test, compaction curved derived and the results were compared. The results proved that inclusion of fiber affected compaction behaviour of samplesso that increasing in fiber content and length caused increasing in Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) and slightly decreased maximum dry unit weight.

Fiber, Silty sand, Compaction