Liquefaction and post-liquefaction resistance of sand reinforced with recycled geofibre

The present study provides an insight into the effect of recycled carpet fibre on the mechanical response of clean sand as backfill material subjected to monotonic loading and cyclic loading as well as post-liquefaction resistance of both unreinforced and carpet fibre reinforced soils. To achieve these goals, a series of multi-stage soil element tests under cyclic loading event resulting in liquefaction followed by undrained monotonic shearing without excess pore water pressure dissipation as well as a series of monotonic undrained shear test is conducted. All the specimens are isotropically consolidated under a constant effective confining stress of 100 kPa by considering the effect of cyclic stress ratio and carpet fibre content ranging from 0.25% to 0.75%. The obtained results revealed the efficiency of carpet fibre inclusion in increasing the secant shear modulus and ductility of clean sand under monotonic shearing without previous loading history. The impact of carpet fibre inclusion on the trend of cyclic excess pore water pressure generation and cyclic stiffness degradation was minimal. However, adding carpet fibre significantly improved both liquefaction and post-liquefaction resistances of clean sand. The liquefaction resistance of clean sand, at a constant 15 loading cycles, improved by 26.3% when the soil was reinforced with 0.75% recycled carpet fibre. In addition, the initial shear modulus of the liquefied specimen significantly increased by adding recycled carpet fibre.