PARAMETRIC STUDIES ON FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT REINFORCED WITH JUTE

Abstract

Geotextiles are being increasingly employed in various Civil Engineering activities to facilitate construction ensure better performance of the structure and reduce maintenance cost. They can be used for diverse applications like separation, reinforcement, erosion control, filtration, drainage etc. In India, the practicing engineer is reluctant to use synthetic geotextiles, as they are expensive. Natural geotextiles are cheap in India but are biodegradable. Hence there is a need to process the natural geotextiles in such a manner that the biodegradation is minimized. In this study, an effort was made to increase the life of jute geotextile by coating it with phenol, which is used widely as a germicide. It was also aimed to examine the reinforcing effect of jute. From laboratory investigations, it was established that jute geotextile should be soaked for 6 hours in 5% phenol solution for best results. Accelerated degradation tests were conducted for a period of 20 days, which refers to a period of 103 days in field, on untreated and phenol treated jute geotextiles. It was observed that reduction in tensile strength was 7.83% less for phenol treated jute than untreated jute. When compared to synthetic geotextile, an economy of 63.33% can be achieved using phenol treated jute. From the plate load test results, an increase of 60.27% was observed in the modulus of subgrade reaction of unreinforced subgrade with inclusion of jute geotextile.