Use of Bamboo in soil Improvement

Published on 19 May 2022. Written by Vinay Raj

There are different methods for the improvement of soil. In the civilization of Mesopotamian lime stone was used as construction material by mixing it with weak soil. Also, in some the ancient civilization people also use materials such as straw, hay etc… these are mixed with the soil with low strength and used as bricks.

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One of the methods is using of the plant fibre to even engineers increased the ground soil of the constructions of ziggurat of Babylon, Great wall of China by using similar plant fibres.

Bamboo is used in this project as it is plenty available to us. And it also causes some problems too when the bamboo starts growing in a certain area the forests and fields surrounding it and the plants which are present are not grown fully because of the occupancy of the area and the light shielding by height of the bamboo tress will dominate the growth of other plants. It is also difficult to remove once it is grown, we can’t just stop the growth of them by removing the shoots. So, by these reasons we must use them effectively.

In this project the bamboo is collected form any source and used as soil materials. The bamboo fibre, which is available after its fulfilment of purpose is used. This bamboo contained of many different sizes and mainly as finely divided powder. In order to perform the experiment, the bamboo is mixed with loose soil and following test can be performed.

• Compaction test
• Liquid limit
• Unconfined compression test.
• Plastic limit
• Water absorption test.

Requirements:

Knowledge of Geotechnical Engineering.

Testing apparatus such as Casagrande apparatus etc… (Geo-tech lab can be used) 

Project Implementation:

1. Collect the loose soil from the sources (Undisturbed sample).
2. Test the above properties on the soil sample.
3. Mix the loose soil with the bamboo fibre collected.
4. Test the above properties with the mixed specimen.
5. Compare the values of the both soil samples.
6. Report the differences between them.

Software Requirements:

• If you need to plot the graph for the values you can use software like MS-Excel, Origin Pro etc…

Advantages:

• The soil sample with bamboo fibre will have very high-water absorption compare to the soil sample without the bamboo fibre.
• The liquid limit and plastic limit of the soil will tend to increase with increase in bamboo.
• The maximum dry density is decreased with increase in the bamboo content.
• The optimum moisture content is increased with increase in the bamboo content in the soil sample.
• The compressive strength of the soil will tend to increase with increase in the bamboo content in the soil sample.

Conclusion:

If you are interested in using the natural materials for the improvement of the soil properties then you can try to perform this project.

Kit required to develop Use of Bamboo in soil Improvement:

• No kit Required

Technologies you will learn by working on Use of Bamboo in soil Improvement:

• Soil Stabilization
• Bamboo
• liquefaction

Any Questions?