Transportation Infrastructure Geotechnology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-019-00073-y
TECHNICAL PAPER

Assessment of the Load–Deformation Behaviour

of Rubber Fibre–Reinforced Cemented Clayey Soil

Jitendra Singh Yadav 1,2 & Shaikh Hussain 1 & Suresh Kumar Tiwari 2 & Ankit Garg 3

Accepted: 15 March 2019/

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
The utilisation of end-of-life tires nowadays has become a matter of great distress across
the globe when left unattended. These tires have been proved to be a malady on the
environment causing severe pollution and health hazards. Hence, the potential use of end-
of-life tires has been crucial, especially due to the uncontrolled population rise in urban
areas which demands construction on undesirable soil. This paper examines the load–
deformation behaviour of rubber fibre–reinforced cemented clayey soil through laboratory
tests such as unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and split tensile strength (STS) tests.
The clayey soil was stabilised with 3 and 6% cement content, and the inclusion level of
rubber fibres was kept at 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10%. A total of 360 specimens, 180 specimens
each for the UCS and STS tests, were prepared in accordance with their optimum moisture
content and maximum dry unit weight and cured for 7, 14 and 28 days. The study revealed
that adding rubber fibres (up to 2.5%) to clayey soil leads to marginal improvement in
UCS and STS. Note that by inclusion of rubber fibres to cemented clayey soil causes a
decrease of UCS and STS. Maximum increase of absolute toughness and toughness index
of cemented clayey soil was observed with the addition of 7.5% rubber fibres. Test results
showed that inspite of the decrease in UCS and STS of cemented clayey soil with the
augmentation of rubber fibre content, there were decreases in initial stiffness and im-
provements on ductility and hardening in the post-peak region. From this study, it could be
concluded that rubber fibres up to 7.5% can be incorporated in the cemented clayey soil.

Keywords Cemented clayey soil . Rubber fibres . Load–deformation behaviour . SEM

* Jitendra Singh Yadav

jitendrasingh.yadav@jaipur.manipal.edu; jitendershine@gmail.com

Shaikh Hussain
hussain21dec@gmail.com

Suresh Kumar Tiwari

sktiwari.ce@mnit.ac.in

Ankit Garg
ankit@stu.cn

Extended author information available on the last page of the article