International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Technology

Authors
Md. Shariful Islam, Md. Mahmud Sazzad

Abstract
Expansive soil is found almost everywhere throughout the world. In semi-arid country like Bangladesh, this type of soil is found almost everywhere. Expansive clays are considered as a problematic due to high shrinkage and swelling potential. Expansive clays swell considerably when water is added to them and then shrink with the loss of water. For everyday construction activities, various precautions have to be considered in order to minimize the risk of construction on such a soil. Geotechnical experts have proposed several measures in order to improve the properties of expansive soil. This experimental study investigates the effect of the inclusion of Polypropylene into expansive soil on its swell-consolidation characteristics. This fiber chooses due to locally available and economical in Bangladesh. This fiber also uses as a recycling purpose. It also presents the comparison the swell-consolidation and unconfined compression characteristics of two different types of remoulded expansive clays. The use of such waste materials to improve the swell-consolidation characteristics would be significant. To determine the effect of the inclusion of Polypropylene into expansive soil, one dimensional swell-consolidation tests were conducted in the laboratory. In this paper, two types of soil samples been considered and soil has been collected from two different locations of Bangladesh. One is Ghodagari in Rajshahi that is the north part of Bangladesh and another is Gazipur in Dhaka that is the east part of Bangladesh. The main objectives of this paper is to evaluate the swelling- consolidation and unconfined compression characteristic of fiber-reinforced of two different remolded expansive soils. Various proportion of Polypropylene by weight of soil (0.5%, 1%, and 2%) were mixed with the expansive soil and the samples were subjected to one dimensional swell-consolidation tests. The test results show that the inclusion of Polypropylene has significant effect on the swell-consolidation characteristics of expansive soil.