Laboratory Assessment of Coir Geotextile Mats Under Wheel Load Conditions for Low-Volume Roads (LVRs)

Abstract

The present study brought out the effort and quantifies the use of geotextile in Low-Volume Roads over the weak subgrade. The Low-Volume Roads (LVRs) play a key role in the economic growth of rural area as well as helps in developing the country. The construction of these LVRs over the weak strength of soil subgrade is a challenging task for civil engineering to provide the safe and smooth flow of traffic, and such soil is revealed that the Black Cotton soil (BC). The weak soil subgrade consists the finer particles like clay and silt showing poor shear strength, bearing capacity, and California bearing ration values. It poses several serious problems to the LVRs. To arrest these problems many of the conventional techniques were adopted in pavement application. But these techniques are nor economical and neither eco-friendly. To reduce this problem, the cost of construction, and to provide a longer duration, geosynthetics are introduced as an alternate material in pavement application in the last few decades. In the umbrella of geosynthetics, the geotextile is gaining attention for its utilization in pavement constructions. The study found the coir composite mats performed better reinforcement and improved the strength of the pavements. This study concluded that the use of coir geotextile mats with appropriate of sub-base soil at the suitable position at H/4 with morrum soil improved the performance of the LVRs with 200mm thickness of mould over the 400 mm thickness of the mould. It is indicate a decrease in construction and maintenance costs of the LVRs.