A Laboratory Investigation on Shear Strength Behavior of Sandy Soil: Effect of Glass Fiber and Clinker Residue Content

Abstract

Abstract A study was undertaken to investigate the shear strength parameters of treated sands reinforced with randomly distributed glass fibers by carrying out direct shear test after seven days curing periods. Firstly, we studied the fiber content and fiber length effect on the peak shear strength on samples. The second part gives a parametric analysis on the effect of glass fiber and clinker residue content on the shear strength parameters for two types of uniform Algerian sands having different particle sizes (Chlef sand and Rass sand) with an average relative density Dr = 50%. Finally, the test results show that the combination of glass fiber and clinker residue content can effectively improve the shear strength parameters of soil in comparison with unreinforced soil. For instance, there is a significant gain for the cohesion and friction angle of reinforced sand of Chlef. Compared to unreinforced sand, the cohesion for sand reinforced with different ratios of clinker residue increased by 4.36 to 43.08 kPa for Chlef sand and by 3.1 to 28.64 kPa for Rass sand. The feature friction angles increased from 38.73° to 43.01° (+4.28°), and after the treatment, clinker residue content of soil evaluated to 5% (WRC = 5%).