Selection of Physical and Chemical Properties of Natural Fibers for Predicting Soil Reinforcement
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 31, Issue 10
Abstract
Natural fibers are environment-friendly and efficient for soil reinforcement. Many studies have reported the influences of fiber percentage on the shear strength of fiber reinforced soil. However, different natural fibers perform differently in the soil reinforcement because of their different physical and chemical properties. In this study, the physical and chemical properties of natural fibers (i.e., natural moisture content, specific gravity, breaking tensile strength, breaking strain, cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and ash) were examined for their influences in the soil reinforcement. Experimental data of unconfined compressive strength (UCS) for three types of natural fibers (coir, jute, and water hyacinth) were collected from the literature. A total of 11 factors including soil moisture content, soil density, and fiber percentage were evaluated by using the Bayesian nonparametric general regression (BNGR) method. The robustness of the BNGR algorithm was validated using -fold cross-validation. A parametric study was carried out to unveil the effects of these input variables. The results indicated that a higher fiber percentage or larger soil density induces higher reinforcement effect. Besides, the cellulose in a natural fiber is found to have a significant effect on the UCS, followed by the ash, whereas the other chemical components, i.e., hemicellulose and lignin, have less association with soil reinforcement. With respect to the physical properties, the breaking strain is found to be highly correlated with the UCS, whereas the effects of fiber natural moisture content, specific gravity, and breaking tensile strength are less significant parameters.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding support from the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) (Code: 193/2017/A3), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51508585), the University of Macau Research Fund (MYRG2018-00173-FST), and the NSFC-ICIMOD Joint Fund (Grant No. 41761144077).
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 31 • Issue 10 • October 2019
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Oct 9, 2018
Accepted: Apr 1, 2019
Published online: Jul 18, 2019
Published in print: Oct 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Dec 18, 2019
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