Strength of a stabilised soil reinforced with steel fibres

Abstract

This paper describes the effect of binder and fibre quantity on the mechanical behaviour of a soft soil stabilised with binders and reinforced with steel fibres. Four types of tests were carried out – unconfined compressive strength (UCS), direct tensile strength (DTS), split tensile strength (STS) and flexural strength (FS) tests. The effects of binder quantity (with and without steel fibres) and the effects of fibre quantity were analysed. The results obtained showed that the compressive strength, tensile strength and stiffness increased with binder quantity, but, with the addition of steel fibres, the behaviour changed depending on the strain mechanism of each test. In general, the presence of a low quantity of steel fibres had a detrimental effect in terms of UCS and a negligible impact on the STS, while a beneficial effect was found for DTS and FS. As the fibre quantity was increased, the UCS, STS and FS tests revealed a decrease in brittleness, while the DTS tests showed brittle behaviour with an abrupt and complete loss of tensile strength after failure. The relationships between compressive and tensile strengths are presented in the paper.