LITERATURE REVIEWS.

Reinforced earth technique has been gaining popularity in the field of civil engineering due to its
highly versatile and flexible nature. It has been used in the construction of retaining walls,
embankments, earth dams, foundation beds for heavy structures on soft grounds and other
applications. In the recent decades, the materials employed as reinforcement in soils are
presently expensive and would require a cheaper and abundant material with similar strength and
durability. Reinforcement of soils with natural and synthetic fibers is potentially an effective
technique for increasing soil strength. The growing interest in utilizing natural materials in civil
engineering applications has opened the possibility of constructing reinforced soil structure with
bamboo. In most soft soils in many places are highly plastic fine grained soils with natural water
content higher than the liquid limit. Soft soils are characterized by high compressibility and low
shear strength.

Soil reinforcement Bamboo

Among plants, bamboo has a unique structure which resembles that of a unidirectional, fiber-
reinforced composite with many nodes along its length. Bamboo, a perennial grass, belonging to
the class monocotyledoneae, exists abundantly in tropical, subtropical and temperate zones of the
world. The use of bamboo had also been demonstrated by Loke (2000) in which they presented
that it could give saving of up to 45-65% compared with using high strength geotextile alone and
conventional filling method. The studies of bamboo as reinforcement material in soil are limited
which make them limited use in practical purposes. Another reason for limited usage of bamboo
as soil reinforcement is due to the more design methodologies available for geosynthetic
material.