Performance of Sand Reinforced with White Coir Fibre

Abstract

Coconut fibre or more commonly known as coir fibre is obtained from the outer shell of coconut. The production of coconut in Malaysia is the fourth important industrial crop after oil palm, rubber and paddy field. However, wastes generated by the coconut are almost fully utilised as by-products and reinforcing material for soil. In fact, the availability of the coconut waste in Malaysia makes it suitable for soil reinforcing material purposes. Problem that sometimes occurs is to dispose this big, heavy and hard coconut at landfill area. It may require more space to go through landfill method. Disposal of this waste material is vital as it can affect the environment. Therefore, by using part of the coconut component can help to overcome this problem. In this research, white coir fibre was utilized as the reinforcing material to sandy soil to suit the backfill material for earth retaining structure that is related to road infrastructure. The lengths of the white coir fibre were fixed at some length according to its orientation such as random, vertical and horizontal. Shear strength parameter were tested using Direct Shear Test. In this research, inclusion of white coir fibre in sandy soil shows enhancement of the shear strength parameter such internal friction angle of soil regardless of its orientation. However, there is no clear relationship between the effect of white coir fibres orientations to the shear strength of sandy soil.