Effect of Waste Polymer Materials on Shear Strength of Unsaturated Clays

Improvement of shear strength of the soil may be undertaken by a variety of ground improvement techniques like stabilization of soil, adoption of reinforced earth techniques like stabilization of soil, adoption of reinforced earth techniques etc. reinforced earth technique is considered as an effective ground improvement method because of it’s cost effectiveness, easy adaptability and reproducibility. In the present investigation, the waste polymer materials has been chosen as the reinforcement material and it was randomly included in to the clayey soils with different plasticity indexes at five different percentages of fiber content (0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%) by weight of raw soil. the main objective of this study had been focused on the strength behavior of the unsaturated clayey soils. reinforced with randomly included waste polymer fiber. the reinforced soil samples were subjected to direct shear tests. The results have clearly shown a significant improvement in the shear strength parameters (C and φ) of the treated soils. The reinforcement benefit increased with an increase in fiber contents