Green-reinforced Sedimentary Silt with Natural Curaua Fiber

ABSTRACT

Lime and cement as traditional binders need to be reduced in soil stabilization to avoid carbon dioxide emissions. Infrastructure development like paved structures, buildings, foundations, and dams involves exhaustive use of natural resources and serious concern for the environment. Using natural fibers as reinforced soil is a green-novel technique that improves soil properties such as strength, deformation, and expansion. Thus, this paper advances the performance of soil reinforcement using natural fiber. Natural Curauá fiber was used to improve unconfined compressive strength (q_u), splitting tensile strength (q_t), shear direct, and deformation of sedimentary silt in southern Brazil. By studying strength properties, 0.50% fiber and a length of 6 mm were selected as an optimum percentage and optimum length, respectively. For direct shear tests, the increase in strength at low confining stresses is proportional to the increase in fiber content and fiber length. By natural biodegradation of fiber, expanded polystyrene (EPS)-based treatment was employed, influencing a reduction of 10% in water absorption of fiber and increasing fiber’s tensile strength by 5%. Finally, the results demonstrate that natural fiber is a friendly-environmental alternative to enhance soil properties by applying rammed earth and some short-use earthworks in green constructions.

摘要

作为传统粘合剂的石灰和水泥需要在土壤稳定中减少, 以避免二氧化碳排放. 基础设施建设, 如铺砌结构, 建筑物, 地基和水坝, 涉及到对自然资源的彻底利用和对环境的严重关切. 使用天然纤维作为加筋土是一种绿色的新技术, 可以改善土壤的强度, 变形和膨胀等特性. 因此, 本文提出了利用天然纤维加固土壤的性能. 天然Curauá纤维用于提高巴西南部沉积淤泥的无侧限抗压强度 (qu), 劈裂抗拉强度 (qt), 直接剪切强度和变形. 通过研究强度特性, 分别选择0.50%的纤维和6mm的长度作为最佳百分比和最佳长度. 对于直剪试验, 低围压下强度的增加与纤维含量和纤维长度的增加成正比. 通过纤维的自然生物降解, 采用了基于发泡聚苯乙烯 (EPS) 的处理, 使纤维的吸水率降低了10%, 拉伸强度提高了5%. 最后, 结果表明, 通过在绿色建筑中使用夯土和一些短期使用的土方工程, 天然纤维是一种环境友好的替代物, 可以改善土壤性质.

KEYWORDS:

• Mechanical behavior
• reinforced soil
• natural curauá fiber
• shear stress
• green constructions

关键词:

• 机械行为
• 加筋土
• 天然库拉索纤维
• 剪切应力
• 绿色建筑

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)- Finance Code 001, Fundação Araucária do Paraná and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES;CNPQ