BEHAVIOUR OF MINE WASTE AS REINFORCED SOIL

Sumitra S. Kandolkar, J. N. Mandal

Abstract: Mining in Goa is done by open cast method, which gives rise to huge quantity of mining waste that occupies space and forms a source for series of problems. The enomerous amount of mine waste dumped around the regions of mining activity need to be reused constructively. Hence, if the mine waste is studied for its use as a reinforced soil, then burning issue of environmental pollution caused by mining dumps lying unprotected and unstabilized can be tackled to a certain extent. Also, it will be a step towards finding an alternative material for cohesionless soil in reinforced soil construction. In this study an attempt is made to check the suitability of soil from one of the mining dumps in Goa to be used as reinforced soil. The mine waste soil samples are studied for its compressive strength and shear strength behaviour by conducting two types of tests, unconfined compressive strength test and triaxial tests on unreinforced and reinforced soil samples. The reinforcement used in the form of a grid made from natural material bamboo. The bamboo grid reinforcement is placed in one, two and three layers, for studying the effect of reinforcement on compressive strength, shear strength parameters, stiffness and modes of failure of mining waste soil. The results of the tests on mining waste show improvement in strength as a reinforced soil mass.

Keywords: Mine waste, bamboo reinforcement, unconfined compression strength and triaxial tests

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2012.0102001