Experimental study of the effect of the glass fibers on reducing collapse of a collapsible soil

Collapsible soil presents a porous unsaturated structure, its sudden settlement after humidification, without supplementary charge, can be of a big nuisance for the foundations and therefore for the constructions built on it. To improve its structure and limit its instability, samples of laboratory reconstituted soil, with different percentages of water contents and compacted at different compaction energies, were treated with glass-fiber. The study of the mechanical behavior was performed by oedometer tests. The microstructure was explored by the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results obtained show clearly the efficiency of the treatment with glass fiber on reducing the collapsibility of such soil.