A constitutive model for fiber-reinforced soils

Fiber inclusion to improve the properties of compacted soil is becoming increasingly common in geotechnical engineering projects. However, the technique requires extensive testing on soil and fiber samples before it can be implemented. Although research performed over the last few decades has evaluated certain fiberreinforced soil properties and formations, the development of constitutive models for fiber-reinforced soil has lagged. This dissertation aims to minimize testing requirements for fiber-reinforced specimens and thereby to encourage the implementation of fiberreinforced soils in engineering. Extensive testing on unreinforced and reinforced silty and Ottawa sand specimens was performed to develop and to validate a constitutive model for predicting the stressstrain-volume-pore pressure response of fiber-reinforced soils. Results showed that the effective friction angle and cohesion intercept increased significantly in consolidatedundrained (