A Study on the Influence of Confining Pressure on the Behavior of Fiber-Reinforced Soil

Abstract

The use of randomly distributed fiber as soil reinforcement is nowadays a popular ground improvement technique. The absence of weak plane is a major advantage of the fiber reinforcement over the other soil reinforcement techniques, where weak plane exit parallel to the reinforcement. Similar to the roots of plant, fiber binds soil particles through surface interaction between soil and fiber, which results in the improvement of the load carrying capacity of soil. In this study, a series of triaxial test were carried out to understand the effect of confining pressure on the strength and stiffness characteristics of the fiber-reinforced soil. The test results have shown that with increase in the confining pressure, peak stress and stiffness increases. But the performance of fiber reinforcement in strength improvement is more significant in case of lower confining pressure, because the reinforcing action of the fibers was suppressed by the increased confining pressure.