Strength Behavior of a SiltySoil Reinforced with Plastic Waste

Solid waste management, especially the huge quantity of waste plastics, is one of the major environmental concerns nowadays and recycling plastic waste from water bottles has become one of the major challenges worldwide. This paper provides an experimental study for the use of plastic waste bottles as reinforcement material to improve the strength behavior of silty soil. A series of consolidated undrained (CU) triaxial compression and one dimensional consolidation tests were performed to determine strength and compression behavior of 4 mm width plastic waste chips mixed silty soil and observe the influence of fiber length (4, 8 and 12mm) and fiber content (0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.0and 1.25% by dry weight of soil) on shear strength andcompressibility of silty soil. The results show that, increase in waste plastic content and length improved the shear strength and reduced the compressibility of reinforced soil significantly. This addition in strength and reduction in settlement can be useful consideration for bearing capacity improvement, settlement reduction in foundations and ground improvement.

Keywords:

Silty soil , Plastic waste , Shear strength , Compressibility , Triaxial test , Consolidation