Strength Properties of Sand Reinforced with a Mixture of Organic Polymer Stabilizer and Polypropylene Fiber

Abstract

Stabilization methods have been widely used to enhance the strength properties of sand to meet the demands of geotechnical engineering. In this paper, a mixture of organic polymer stabilizer (OPS) and polypropylene fiber (PF) was used as the soil stabilizer to reinforce sand. Laboratory tests were used to study the strength properties of the reinforced sand. Mixtures with different proportions of 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% OPS and .2%, .4%, .6%, and .8% PF were designed for these tests. The mechanism of incorporating reinforcement was studied by images from a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The test results revealed that the strength properties of sand specimens reinforced with a mixture of OPS and PF improved strongly. The addition of OPS-PF provided great enwrapping and bonding ability to keep the sand structure stable. The reinforcements imparted by a mixture of organic polymer and fiber can be chosen as an effective technique to enhance the strength of sand for its efficient engineering application.