Effect of Rice Husk and Nylon Fibre on the CBR and UCS of clayey soil

Soil stabilization is done to improve its engineering performance such as shear strength, compressibility and permeability. Soil stabilization may be physical, chemical, biological or combined methods to meet an engineering purpose. Soft clay is a problematic soil from civil engineering construction point of view. To make them more feasible to construction purposes, numerous materials have been used. In this paper stabilization of clayey soil using Nylon fiber and Rice Husk ash was evaluated. Experiments were conducted on soil treated with Rice Husk ash only and soil treated with both Rice Husk ash and Nylon fiber. The methodology used was first to find out the optimum Rice Husk ash that can be utilized in untreated soil. Further various percentage of Nylon fiber (0.5 and 1.5) was added at various Rice Husk ash percentages (20, 25, and 30) and the optimum was found out. The optimum percentage was obtained from standard proctor test, and the strength was obtained from unconfined compressive strength test and California bearing ratio test. The optimum percentage of Nylon fiber and Rice Husk ash was obtained as 1.5 and 25% by weight of soil, respectively. Result of optimum percentage on unconfined compressive strength, California bearing ratio test and plasticity characteristics of treated soil were determined over a curing period of 1 day and 7 days. The strength of soil stabilized with Nylon fiber and Rice Husk ash was found to be improved, and the strength of treated soil was more in the case of combination of Rice Husk ash and Nylon fiber.