Effect of fibre reinforcement on CBR behaviour of lime-blended expansive soils: reliability approach

The use of synthetic fibres as reinforcement to stabilise expansive soils is gaining momentum. As a contribution towards this growing field of research two different types of synthetic fibres, Fiber Mesh® and Fiber Cast®, were evaluated as a stabilisation alternative for expansive soils in the presence of lime. California bearing ratio (CBR) is chosen as a performance indicator as it is a good pointer towards pavement effectiveness. Variables such as length and amount of the fibres as well as curing period were studied. Both deterministic and probabilistic (or reliability) analyses is presented in this paper. While the deterministic analysis helps in understanding the measured experimental data, the probabilistic approach accounts for the stochastic nature of the experimental data and provides a better rationale for the design methods. The deterministic approach showed that the improvement in CBR increased with higher fibre contents and longer lengths and the effect was prominent when lime was used as a stabiliser. There were some exceptions to this behaviour, which were noted in the paper. The probabilistic analysis showed that the amount and lengths of fibres were important factors in CBR strength. It was also determined that the variation in the target CBR value had a considerable effect on optimising the length and amount of the fibres.