Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Fiber reinforced geopolymer treated soft clay – An innovative and

sustainable alternative for soil stabilization
Bhavita Chowdary a,⇑, V. Ramanamurty a, Rakesh J. Pillai b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Warangal, Warangal 506004, Telangana, India
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad, Palakkad 678557, Kerala, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Deep Soil Mixing (DSM) is one of the effective methods widely used in the stabilization of soft and weak
Received 4 January 2020 soils. For DSM applications, an industrial by-product based geopolymer binder was recommended as a
Received in revised form 10 March 2020 sustainable alternative to cement. The addition of fibers to treated soil arrests crack propagation thus fur-
Accepted 22 March 2020
ther improving its strength and ductility. In the present investigation, ground granulated blast furnace
Available online xxxx
slag (GGBS) reacted with 8 M NaOH was used as a geopolymer (GP) binder to treat soft clay at high water
content. Polypropylene (PP) fibers of 12 mm length were used as reinforcement in 0.25 to 1.0% propor-
Keywords:
tions. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and durability (wetting – drying) tests were conducted
GGBS
Geopolymer
on the prepared specimens. From the study, the advantages of fiber inclusion in improving the mechan-
Unconfined compressive strength ical behaviour and durability of the treated soft soil were highlighted. The GP treated soil mixes with bin-
Wetting-drying cycles der content of 30% and Activator/Binder (A/B) ratio of 0.75 reinforced with 1% PP fibers by weight have
Polypropylene fibers exhibited superior strength and durability characteristics and thus can be used as sustainable alternative
to the traditional binders in deep soil mixing applications.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Con-
ference on Innovative Technologies for Clean and Sustainable Development.

1. Introduction Geopolymers are cementitious binders produced by combining

Soft soils that are present in large tracts along the coastlines of
many world nations are characterized by high natural water con-
tent coupled with low shear strength making them unsuitable to
support any civil engineering structures [1]. However, due to high
economic activity in the coastal areas, the major infrastructure
such as transportation routes, ports and harbour structures are to
be built over such deposits [2]. Several ground improvement tech-
niques such as preloading with vertical drains, stone columns,
electro-osmosis and in recent times the deep soil mixing (DSM)
were widely used to build the structures over these deposits.
Among the different techniques adopted for stabilization of soft
soils, deep soil mixing gained global prominence due to its short
duration improvement. For deep soil mixing, lime and cement have
been the most commonly used binders so far [3–6]. In view of envi-
ronmental concerns with these binders, a great deal of research has
been taken up by several investigators to develop alternative bin-
ders such as geopolymers [7,8,9,23,24,25].
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bhavitachowdary@gmail.com (B. Chowdary).
industrial by-products and waste products possessing high amor-
phous Al and Si contents, such as flyash (FA), ground granulated
blast furnace slag (GGBS), metakaolin (MK), etc., with a liquid alka-
line activator (like sodium/potassium hydroxide and sodium/
potassium silicate), rich in soluble metals, like sodium and potas-
sium [9,10]. The geopolymerization is a fast chemical process
which consists of 4 main stages like releasing Al and Si ions
through dissolution, diffusion of the ions, gel formation through
polycondensation of Al and Si complexes with the alkaline activa-
tor and gel hardening that results in the final hardened geopoly-
meric product [7,8,9]. The geopolymeric product thus formed
would be a calcium sodium aluminosilicate hydrate, C-N-A-S-H
[7,10,11]. Further, it is reported that geopolymers are more durable
than cement [10–13]. Flyash based geopolymer was successfully
employed by some researchers in the improvement of clayey soils.
The main drawback of FA based geopolymers was that they require
curing at elevated temperature for a prolonged period [14]. But
GGBS based geopolymer shows significant improvement of
strength within few hours without any prolonged curing at ele-
vated temperature [15].

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Innovative Technologies for Clean and Sustainable
Development.

Please cite this article as: B. Chowdary, V. Ramanamurty and R. J. Pillai, Fiber reinforced geopolymer treated soft clay – An innovative and sustainable alter-
native for soil stabilization, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
2 B. Chowdary et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

With the increase in the dosage of GGBS based geopolymer, the Table 3
stabilized soil displayed brittle failure [7]. Also, compared to Chemical composition of GGBS.

cement, the shrinkage parameters of slag-geopolymer stabilized Oxide SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO SO3 Na2O
soil are several times higher [16], which may reduce its capacity Composition (%) 30.1 13.4 5.7 45.8 6.1 0 0.2
to control failure. Hence, reinforcing the treated soil with fibers
will effectively improve the mechanical behavior of the treated
matrix by controlling the crack propagation [17,26]. In the last dec- Table 4
ade, several researchers reported that Polypropylene (PP) fibers Properties of Fibers used.
inclusion in the soil had improved strength and ductility Fiber Type Length Diameter Aspect Tensile Elastic Specific
[18,19,20,21,26]. Therefore reinforcement of the GGBS geopolymer (mm) (mm) Ratio Strength Modulus Gravity
with discrete PP fibers may be considered as a viable solution/an (MPa) (GPa)
alternative in the improvement of engineering properties along Polypropylene 12 0.035 340 560 4.5 0.91
with greater toughness and ductility [26]. There is limited litera-
ture available on stabilization of soil with GGBS based geopolymer
and fiber addition. Hence, to use Fiber Reinforced GGBS Geopoly- 2.2. Methodology
mer (FR-GP) with PP fibers in DSM technology, a comprehensive
study is needed to evaluate its mechanical and durability perfor- The soil slurry was prepared by adding water equal to its liquid
mance, which is reported in this study. limit (wL). The GGBS or binder (B) and activator (A) were also
mixed together in the required A/B ratio. The activated binder
2. Experimental programme slurry with and without fiber thus prepared was mixed with the
soil slurry and the test specimens were prepared by filling the mix-
2.1. Materials ture in the moulds of diameter 5 cm maintaining the length to
diameter ratio of 2. The specimen preparation and curing condi-
2.1.1. Soft clay tions were same for UCS and durability test specimens. These trea-
The locally available black clay mixed with potable tap water at ted specimens with and without reinforcement were cured at
water content equal to its liquid limit was used. The properties of average temperature and average humidity of 25 °C and 63%
the soil used are given in Table 1. respectively for the required curing period by keeping the moulds
in polyethylene bags and covering them with wet gunny bags for
2.1.2. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) 3 days. Then they were extracted from the moulds and kept in
Sodium hydroxide, also known as Caustic Soda, is purchased the same polyethylene bags to continue the curing. The UCS test
from Fisher Scientific in pellets form. Its properties are given in for the specimens was conducted on a compression testing
Table 2. machine at a rate of loading of 0.6 mm/min after 7 and 28 days
of curing according to ASTM D1633. For each mix, three specimens
2.1.3. Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) were tested to establish average stress–strain behaviour in com-
The GGBS powder was obtained from a local Steel Plant in pression. For durability tests, after 28 days of curing, the specimens
Andhra Pradesh, India. The chemical composition of the GGBS used were first oven dried and then immersed in water (wetting) for 5 h
is given in Table 3. after which the specimens were oven dried at 80 °C for 42 h com-
pleting one cycle of wetting and drying as per the procedure given
2.1.4. Polypropylene fiber (PP Fiber) by ASTM D559/559 M. The durability test was carried out for 12
The PP fiber used was Recron 3S from Reliance Industries and cycles of wetting and drying. The details of the experimentation
their properties are given in Table 4. for the study are presented in Table 5.

Table 1 3. Results and discussion

Soil properties.
3.1. Unconfined compression
Parameters Value/Designation
Grain size distribution
For the soil at liquid limit (wL) treated with GGBS-geopolymer,
Gravel (%) 2
Sand (%) 21 Fig. 1 shows the variation of UCS with the binder content after 7
Silt (%) 34 and 28 days curing at different A/B ratios. It was found that the
Clay (%) 43 UCS increased with the binder content for any A/B ratio at activator
Atterberg limits concentration of 8 molarity. There is a steep increase in strength
Liquid Limit (%) 68
Plastic Limit (%) 22
upto 20% binder content and thereafter, the rate of increase in
Plasticity Index, PI (%) 46 strength gain is reduced. The reduction in rate of strength gain
Optimum Moisture Content, OMC (%) 24
Maximum Dry Density, MDD (gm/cc) 1.54 Table 5
Specific Gravity, Gs 2.65 Materials and methodology.
IS Soil Classification CH
pH 7.4 Parameters Description
Materials Soft soil, GGBS
Activator Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)
Molarity of Activator 8M
Fiber type Polypropylene (PP)
Table 2 Fiber content (%) 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0
NaOH properties. Binder Content (%) 10, 20, 30
Activator/Binder (A/B) ratio 0.5, 0.75, 1.0
Density (gm/cc) Mass (gm/mol) Solubility in water
Initial soil moisture content (%) wL
2.1 39.9971 100 gm/100 ml (20 °C Tests conducted UCS, Durability (wetting-drying)

Please cite this article as: B. Chowdary, V. Ramanamurty and R. J. Pillai, Fiber reinforced geopolymer treated soft clay – An innovative and sustainable alter-
native for soil stabilization, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
 B. Chowdary et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

Fig. 1. Variation of UCS of GGBS-geopolymer treated soil specimens with binder Fig. 3. Uniaxial Stress-Strain behavior of fiber reinforced GGBS-geopolymer treated
content after 7 and 28 days curing. soil specimens reinforced with fibers at different fiber contents.

beyond 20% binder content could be attributed to the presence of
unreacted binder particles producing geopolymeric gels which
form flocculated crystals that grow larger with time causing inter-
nal forces that lead to non-uniformity and minor bond breakages
[25]. However, the target strength of 1.034 MPa [22] for deep mix-
ing could be obtained for binder content of 20% for A/B ratio
greater than or equal to 0.75. Further, beyond the A/B ratio of
0.75, the strength gain is nominal which could be attributed to
the undesirable morphological changes at higher activator content.
From Fig. 2, it can be found that the UCS of the specimens has
improved with increase in fiber content upto 0.5% and thereafter
reduced slightly. The increase in the strength upto 0.5% fiber con-
tent can be attributed to the uniform distribution of fibers through-
out the treated soil matrix which prevented the occurrence of
microcracks under loading. Beyond 0.5% fiber content, a slight
reduction in peak strength was observed for all the mixes. This
might be due to the decrease in effective bonding between the
fibers and the surrounding soil matrix in few regions, also, as the
fiber content increases there is a possibility that fibers adhere to
each other during preparation of specimens and lose contact with
the surrounding treated soil matrix. However, the reduction in the
strength can be considered as nominal.
3.2. Stress-strain behaviour
Fig. 3 depicts the stress-strain behavior of FR-GP treated soft
clay specimens at 30% binder content and A/B ratio of 1.0, under
uniaxial loading conditions. With the increase in the binder con-
tent, the treated specimens tend to show more brittle behavior
which is reduced with the addition of fibers increasing their ductil-

Fig. 2. UCS values of fiber-reinforced specimens treated with different binder contents at (a) A/B = 0.5 (b) A/B = 0.75 (c) A/B = 1.0.

Please cite this article as: B. Chowdary, V. Ramanamurty and R. J. Pillai, Fiber reinforced geopolymer treated soft clay – An innovative and sustainable alter-
native for soil stabilization, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
4 B. Chowdary et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 5. Volume of specimens (%) for 12 cycles of wetting and drying of GGBS-
geopolymer treated soil specimens reinforced with PP fibers at different fiber
contents for binder content 30% and A/B = 0.75.

Fig. 4. Specimens treated with (a) UR-GP (b) FR-GP at failure.

ity. The initial slope of the stress-strain curve was found to have
reduced increasing the peak strain with increase in the fiber con-
tent. The Unreinforced GGBS-geopolymer (UR-GP) treated speci-
mens were found to have exhibited a brittle failure under
uniaxial loading (Fig. 4(a)). Though the peak strength of the fiber
reinforced treated specimens reduced slightly beyond 0.5% fiber
content addition, a significant increase in the peak strain and thus
increase in the ductility of the treated specimens was observed
with increase in the fiber content upto 1%. The treated specimens Fig. 6. Mass loss(%) for 12 cycles of wetting and drying of GGBS-geopolymer treated
soil specimens reinforced with PP fibers at different fiber contents for binder
reinforced with 1% fiber content has shown maximum ductility
content 30% and A/B = 0.75.
among the other considered fiber contents. Fig. 4 shows the pic-
tures of brittle and ductile failure of UR-GP and FR-GP treated spec-
imens respectively. imens with 1% fiber content has shown minimum volume change
and mass loss against 12 w-d cycles.
3.3. Durability against wetting and drying
3.3.2. Residual strength
In the durability test conducted against 12 wetting and drying It can be observed from Fig. 7 that there was slight reduction in
(w-d) cycles of the FR-GP treated soil specimens, the volume strength of both UR-GP and FR-GP treated specimens upto 3 w-d
change, mass loss and residual UCS after number of w-d cycles cycles. The reduction in strength of the specimens upto the third
were measured. cycle maybe attributed to the same reason as mentioned for vol-
ume change and mass loss. However, after three w-d cycles, the
3.3.1. Volume change and mass loss
Figs. 5 and 6 represent the change in volume and mass loss of
the treated specimens at different fiber contents for the mix 30%
binder content and A/B ratio 0.75. It can be observed that there
is a reduction in volume and mass of the specimens for each w-d
cycle. However, the FR-GP treated specimens have shown lesser
volume change and mass loss as compared to the UR-GP treated
specimens. This can be attributed to the bridging and crack arrest-
ing phenomenon of the fibers which minimized the formation and
propagation of desiccation cracks during oven drying of the speci-
mens and also due to their strong bond formation with the prod-
ucts of geopolymerisation and the clay particles surrounding
them that prevented leaching of unreacted particles. The increase
of mass loss upto the third cycle maybe due to the leaching of
unreacted and unbonded clay and GGBS particles. However, after
three cycles, the geopolymeric network was strongly formed such
that mass loss was not much affected by w-d cycles. The volume Fig. 7. Residual strength during 12 cycles of wetting and drying of GGBS-
change and mass loss of the FR-GP treated specimens for all the geopolymer treated soil specimens reinforced with PP fibers at different fiber
other mixes has followed similar trend and FR-GP treated soil spec- contents for binder content 30% and A/B = 0.75.

Please cite this article as: B. Chowdary, V. Ramanamurty and R. J. Pillai, Fiber reinforced geopolymer treated soft clay – An innovative and sustainable alter-
native for soil stabilization, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
 B. Chowdary et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
geopolymeric network was strongly formed such that the strength
of the specimens was not much affected by w-d cycles. It can also
be observed that the FR-GP treated specimens show better durabil-
ity characteristics like lower volume change, lower mass loss and
increased residual strength at 1% fiber content after 12 w-d cycles.
4. Conclusions
From the results obtained in the present study, the following
conclusions can be drawn:
 The GGBS-geopolymer treated specimens exhibited improved
strength properties with increase in binder content and activa-
tor/binder ratio. However, only the specimens made with bin-
der content and A/B ratio beyond 20% and 0.75 respectively
could reach the minimum UCS required for deep mixing
applications.
 With the PP fiber addition, the UCS of the specimens of all the
mixes improved upto 0.5% fiber content whereas beyond 0.5%,
a slight reduction was observed. However, the reduction in
the strength can be considered as nominal.
 With the PP fiber inclusion, the failure of the specimens under
axial loading has changed from brittle to ductile by exhibiting
larger strains at higher fiber contents.
 The FR-GP treated specimens have outperformed GP treated
specimens in terms of durability aspects such as volume
change, mass loss and residual strength.
 Among all the mixes, FR-GP treated specimens with 1% fiber
content exhibited better ductility and durability characteristics.
 The GP treated soil mixes with binder content of 30% and A/B
ratio of 0.75 reinforced with 1% PP fibers by weight have exhib-
ited superior strength and durability characteristics and thus
can be used as sustainable alternative to the traditional binders
in deep soil mixing applications.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Bhavita Chowdary: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investiga-
tion, Validation, Writing - original draft. V. Ramanamurty: Con-
ceptualization, Visualization, Supervision, Writing - review &
editing. Rakesh J. Pillai: Conceptualization, Visualization, Supervi-
sion, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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native for soil stabilization, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.03.574
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