Abstract
A clayey soil reinforced with commercially obtainable20 mm glass fiber of varying fiber content (fc = 0.25 to 1% by soil dry weight) was investigated in lab for its possible application as road pavement material. Standard proctor compaction, unconfined compression strength (UCS), California Bearing Ratio (CBR) and undrained triaxial compression tests were conduction on compacted soil-fiber specimens as per ASTM standard. From the fiber mixing process it has been observed that fiber can be uniformly mixed into clayey soil only up to some optimum fiber content. Laboratory test results predicted that UCS, CBR and shear strength value of clayey soil enhanced significantly with fiber content up to some optimum value of 0.75% fiber content. The UCS increases maximum up to two fold, CBR by 2.8 times and shear strength by around 1.75 times than that of clayey soil alone. The inclusion of glass fibers enhances the ductility of clayey soil and modifies its failure pattern from brittle to ductile. It has been found that the glass fiber reinforced clayey soil can be used significantly as a subgrade material for low volume flexible road pavement.