New Delhi: Scientists at IIT-Roorkee have developed a technique to use waste plastic bottles to mitigate earthquake damage. The scientists claimed that if waste plastic bottle fiber is mixed with soil in a particular ratio, the soil of that area would be strengthened and minimise damage during an earthquake.
"The use of plastic fibers as a soil reinforcement is helpful in mitigation of the liquefaction phenomenon in embankments, slops, man-made fills or other geotechnical structures," said Prof Satyendra Mittal, IIT Roorkee, Principal Investigator of the project.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Geotextiles and Geomembranes under the title Use of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibres for mitigating the liquefaction-induced failures, the research team comprises Prof Satyendra Mittal, Sanjay Kumar Shukla and Arpit Jain.
"PET fibers enhance the liquefaction resistance of fine sand. After performing a series of stress controlled cyclic triaxial tests, the cyclic behaviour of PET fiber reinforced sand has been investigated. In medium dense sand (in comparison of normal loose sand) after mixing 0.6% PET fibers, the number of cycles to reach liquefaction was about 4 times that of unreinforced sand," said Mittal, a senior professor at the civil engineering department.
According to researchers, around 2 kg PET fibers will be sufficient for mixing with 100 kg sand or soil. Researcher Jain said: "With this (mixing), the reinforcing strength of the soil, where man-made structure is planned, will be 40 to 60% increased and if any structure is built on this fibers mixed soil, the losses due to an earthquake will be over 70% less in comparison of normal soil."
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