IMPROVING THE PROPERTIES OF CLAY SOILS BY HUMAN HAIR FIBERS

Abstract

Some Clay soils are characterized by volume change, swell in wet season and shrink in dry season. This leads to failure of civil structures by move vertically and horizontally. Such soils can be improved by employing chemical stabilization techniques such as lime, cement and other stabilized materials. However, as these techniques are expensive, so locally available low-cost materials can be applied as alternative to improve the engineering properties of clay soils. This research showed that how much of virgin soil property was improved by stabilized human hair fiber in case of index and engineering property. Human hair fiber is a normal non-biodegradable cheap waste material. ASTM, BS and AASHTO soil test laboratory methods are used. Index property, compaction characteristics, unconfined compressive strength, California bearing ratio value of both virgin and reinforced soil sample tests were determined. The virgin soil samples were treated with various rates of human hair fiber (0.5%, 0.75%, 1%, and 1.5%). From laboratory test observed that 0.75% HHF soil has significant improvement. Addition of 0.75 % stabilization of HHF decreases liquid limit, plasticity, linear shrinkage. The soaked and unsoaked CBR for number of blow 10, 30 and 65 were increased. MDD, UCS and Shear modulus, G significant improvement at 0.75%hhf