Paper reinforcement and soil

Abstract

Composite soils have been extensively used in civil engineering applications, especially in slopes, embankment dam and landfills. This paper aims to investigate effect of paper reinforcement inclusion on compaction characteristic of composite soil (i.e. clay composite). A series of laboratory tests performed to assess reinforcement effect on optimum water content and maximum dry unit weight of composite soils. Clay was selected as soil part of the composite and paper was used as reinforcement. The paper reinforcement parameters differed from one test to another, as paper length varied from 15 mm to 40mm and paper content were selected as 5% and 10%. For each test, compaction curved derived and the results were compared. The results proved that inclusion of paper affected compaction behaviour of samples so that increasing in paper content and length caused increasing in Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) and slightly decreased maximum dry unit weight.