Performance of a fibre-reinforced sand at large shear strains

Abstract

The aim of this research was to study the behaviour of polypropylene-fibre-reinforced sand under large shear strains. The experimental study consisted of ring shear tests on a sand, with and without randomly distributed fibrous reinforcement. The behaviour of the fibre-reinforced sand mixtures was investigated at large distortional strains, examining the effects of fibre length, fibre content, effective normal stress, and relative density. The effects of reinforcement were found to be more pronounced for longer fibres, higher fibre contents and denser fibre-reinforced sand composites. The results showed the great potential of this kind of fibre reinforcement, because the increase of strength does not deteriorate even at very large strains. The fibres were exhumed after testing and it was found that they had both extended and broken at all normal stresses and for all initial fibre lengths studied, and that the fibre performance depended on the shear displacement that had occurred.