Use of repurposed whole textile for enhancement of pavement soils

Abstract

AbstractThe common availability of recycled textile from clothing represents an untapped resource which can be used as soil reinforcement. Recent efforts to use fibers as soil reinforcement have mostly concentrated on adding thin long fibers to natural soils. The techniques when applied to production often encounter mass production issues such as the difficulty in preventing localization, entanglement of the fibers and adhesion between the fiber and soil matrix interface. This experimental study uses small amounts (0.5%, 0.75% and 1.0%) of repurposed textile from polyester clothing cut into small pieces to reinforce a poorly graded sand. The California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test was used to quantitatively assess the strength characteristics of sand reinforced by adding whole textiles. The results of the laboratory program indicate a significant increase in CBR numbers and offers insight into the possible increase in other strength parameters such as ultimate bearing capacity. The increase in CBR values changes the suitability of the reinforced sand from subbase soils only, to also include base soils within pavements. During laboratory procedures localization and entanglement of textile reinforcement during mixing was not observed which suggests minimal difficulties when implementing the technology during construction applications. The results indicate that the use of the technique can lead to cost savings associated with the use of low-cost aggregates within a pavement base and subbase, thinner base and subbase layers, smaller footprints related to steeper slopes, and decreased periodic maintenance requirements of pavements.