Behavior of lightweight-foamed soil reinforced by waste fishing net and its design guideline

Abstract

Lightweight-foamed soils are promising new geomaterials that can be used when the lateral earth pressure and settlement need to be reduced. Lightweight-foamed soil typically consists of dredged soils, cement, and air foam. Extra additives could be used to enhance the performance of lightweight-foamed soils, and waste fishing nets are materials that can be used for tensile reinforcement of geomaterials. In this study, a waste fishing net was used in lightweight-foamed soil, and several laboratory tests were conducted to optimize the composition of lightweight-foamed soils in terms of water content, cement ratio, air foam ratio, and net type. A dredged soil in-situ was sampled to use and a waste fishing net was retreated for laboratory experiments. The waste fishing net cut into pieces and some were unthreaded. A form generator was used to produce air foam. The comprehensive evaluation of lightweight-foamed soil reinforced with waste fishing net was performed in terms of the sample preparation time, rheology, unit weight, and strength associated with lightweight-foamed soils. The results showed that lightweight-foamed soils reinforced with waste fishing net provided a peak strength similar with unreinforced one, but having higher critical strength. Finally, the normalized factor (NF) was used to develop a design guideline for lightweight-foamed soils.

KEYWORDS:

• Lightweight soil
• dredged soil
• foam
• waste fishing net
• normalized factor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) (Project No. PEA0133, 2021–2023).