Shear strength behaviour of bagasse fibre reinforced expansive soil

© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the shear strength behaviour of expansive soil reinforced with bagasse fibre. Bagasse fibre, an agricultural waste by-product left after crushing of sugar-cane for juice extraction, was employed in this study as a reinforcing component for expansive soil reinforcement. The expansive soil used in this investigation was collected from Queensland, Australia. To experimentally investigate the influence of bagasse fibre reinforcement on the shear strength of expansive soil, a series of non-reinforced and fibre reinforced soil samples was prepared by changing randomly distributed bagasse fibre content from 0% to 2%. An array of intensive experimental tests using triaxial compression apparatus was carried out and its results are presented and discussed in further detail. The experimental results reveal that bagasse fibre reinforcement exhibited significant effects on shear strength characteristics of reinforced soils in terms of relationships between deviatoric stress and axial shear strain, ultimate deviatoric strength, and shear strength parameters