Mechanical Behavior of Reinforced Clayey Soil with Fine Crushed Polyethylene Terephthalate

Abstract

Currently a lot of bottles of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are discarded into the environment. In order to reduce the disposal of this polymer in nature, this study aims to evaluate the mechanical behavior of a clayey soil mixed with fine crushed PET. The potential use of this waste material in geotechnical applications may ultimately reduce the problem of improper disposal and improve the strength and deformation characteristics of the soil. This paper presents an experimental study to evaluate the mechanical behavior of pure soil and mixtures with different contents of PET waste by triaxial tests, in order to obtain the strength parameters of the Soil-PET mixtures. The clayey soil used was mixed with 10 and 20 percent of fine crushed PET by dry weight. Characterization tests such as grain size, Atterberg limits and compaction test were performed on the soil-PET mixtures. Triaxial tests at confining stresses of 50, 150 and 300 kPa were done on the soil and mixtures. The results show that the soil strength parameters are influenced by the addition of the fine crushed PET, thus improving characteristics such as friction angle and cohesion of the Soil-PET mixtures. This improvement also depends on the confining level which the samples were submitted. These mixtures may be used in pavement and other geotechnical works, so this paper proposes to contribute to a better understanding and interpretation of the behavior of reinforced soil with waste PET.