Experimental Study on Shear Strength Performance of Coal Bottom Ash Reinforced with Geosynthetics

Abstract

A productive utilization of ash materials may offer a sustainable solution by reducing the waste disposal problems and overcoming the scarcity of natural, high-quality granular material. Additionally, it provides an economical alternative to conventional geomaterials, which will encourage the economic benefits to both electricity producers and construction agencies. This study focuses on the assessment of the shear strength performance of bottom ash reinforced with geotextile and geonet. It also examines the influence of number of reinforcement layers, confining pressure, type of reinforcement and imposed strain levels on the strength performance of reinforced bottom ash. The test results revealed that geonet has many dominant factor over geotextile when used as a reinforcement in bottom ash. The cohesion (c) value of the reinforced bottom ash was found to be increased from 4.26 to 115.21 kPa and 4.26 to 107.42 kPa with geonet and geotextile as reinforcing material respectively. Similarly, the friction angle (ϕ) elevates from 46.05° to 48.80° and 46.05° to 47.48° with geonet and geotextile as reinforcing material respectively. The application of reinforced bottom ash in the road pavement has also been studied. The improved performance proved that the reinforced bottom ash is a promising material to be used as foundation base material and sub-base material in the pavement. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.