Strength Behavior of Clayey Soil Reinforced with Human Hair as a Natural Fibre

Abstract

There are various ground improvement techniques available, soil reinforcement technique has been successfully used in recent times to improve the shear parameters of the marginal/weak soils. Among various reinforcing materials, human hair fiber (HHF) can be used as a natural fiber to enhance the shear strength and bearing capacity of a clayey soil for sustainable use of waste material and sustainable development of infrastructures in a rapid urbanization. Human hair fiber is a natural non-degradable waste material, which creates health and environmental problem if not disposed-off in scientific manner. This is available in abundance at a very low cost and can be easily used as a reinforcing material not only to improve poor/unsuitable construction sites for sustainable construction but also to avoid its disposal problems. Therefore, this paper presents some studies on strength properties of clayey soil reinforced with HHF. The HHF randomly distributed in clayey soil samples were tested for its engineering properties by performing CBR and tri-axial test on a number of samples by using the different percentage of fibres and comparing the results with the non-reinforced soil. Fibres of average length 25 mm and average diameter of 50 µm were used. The test result revealed that the strength significantly improves with the inclusion of HHF and also prevents the sample from cracking.