Compressive and Shear Strengths of Coir Fibre Reinforced Activated Carbon Stabilised Lateritic Soil

Sakina Tamassoki, Nik Norsyahariati Nik Daud, Fauzan Mohd Jakarni, Faradiella Mohd. Kusin, Ahmad Safuan A. Rashid and Mohammad Jawed Roshan
Additional contact information
Sakina Tamassoki: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Nik Norsyahariati Nik Daud: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Fauzan Mohd Jakarni: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Faradiella Mohd. Kusin: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Ahmad Safuan A. Rashid: Department of Geotechnics and Transportation, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Malaysia
Mohammad Jawed Roshan: Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Kabul Polytechnic University, Kabul 1001, Afghanistan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Constructing structures on lateritic soil is challenging in geotechnical engineering due to the various physical and geotechnical characteristics. Many studies investigated different stabiliser materials to strengthen the geotechnical parameters of lateritic soil. This study used activated carbon and coir fibre (ACF) to stabilise lateritic soils as an environmentally friendly binder. Experiments including the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test and the direct shear test (DST) are performed to investigate the mechanical properties of ACF-stabilised soil for different percentages of activated carbon (AC). Before and after ACF stabilisation, microstructural characterisations of soil samples were performed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and surface-area analysis (BET). The experimental results demonstrate that 3% ACF can considerably enhance the compressive strength, while 2% ACF significantly improves the shear strength, of lateritic soil. Accordant to the UCS results, using fibre in AC-stabilised soil improves post-peak behaviour and residual strength. Moreover, 2% ACF can significantly improve shear strength by creating an interlocking matrix among AC, soil particles, and fibre. The microstructural characterisation based on the findings obtained by FESEM and BET analysis confirms that AC particles fill soil voids. AC restrains the soil movement when exposed to external stresses. In addition, the formation of gel in the stabilised soil matrix binds the soil particles, increasing the strength of the ACF-stabilised soil in comparison with untreated soil.

Keywords: lateritic soil; activated carbon; direct shear test; geotechnical properties; microstructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9100/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9100/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:15:p:9100-:d:871014

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().