A simple review of soil reinforcement by using natural and synthetic fibers

Soil reinforcement is defined as a technique to improve the engineering characteristics of soil. In this way, using natural fibers to reinforce soil is an old and ancient idea. Consequently, randomly distributed fiber-reinforced soils have recently attracted increasing attention in geotechnical engineering for the second time. The main aim of this paper, therefore, is to review the history, benefits, applications; and possible executive problems of using different types of natural and/or synthetic fibers in soil reinforcement through reference to published scientific data. As well, predictive models used for short fiber soil composite will be discussed. On other words, this paper is going to investigate why, how, when; and which fibers have been used in soil reinforcement projects.

► This paper reviews the concept of using discrete randomly distributed fibers in soil.
► The functional fiber characteristics increasing strength and stiffness of soil were reported in this work.
► Three major executive problems involved with the short fiber composite soil production were discussed in this paper.
► This paper illustrated technical advantages and general applications of short fiber composite soils.