Settlement Behaviour of Peat Reinforced With Recycled Waste Tyre Granules

Abstract

Peat is a problematic soil for having high organic content and high water content in nature. This soil is normally avoided for construction as it shows significant primary and secondary settlement even under moderate load. Ground improvement is conducted to improve peat properties by using cement column, soil replacement, chemical and biological stabilisation and others. However, some of these methods have their drawbacks for being non-sustainable to the environment, very costly, ineffectiveness and slow result performance. Alternative method using recycled waste tyre granules is seen as an innovative approach to reduce the settlement behaviour of peat in a more sustainable way. This paper investigates the effect of waste tyre granules on the settlement behaviour of peat. One-Dimensional consolidation test is carried out on natural sample and samples added with 5 % waste tyre granules with and without addition of sand as filler. The settlement curves for all samples do not show distinct separation between primary and secondary compression stages when using Casagrande’s method. Sample which is reinforced with 5 % waste tyre granules and sand has lower compression index and swelling index compared to other samples. The coefficient of volume of compressibility for all samples is reduced with increasing stress levels.