Effects of freeze-thaw cycles on the unconfined compressive strength of straw fiber-reinforced soil

Abstract Although natural fibers can improve the strength behavior of frozen-thawed soil, the reinforcing mechanism is still not fully understood. To investigate the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on the strength of natural fiber-reinforced soil, unconfined compression tests, single-fiber pull-out tests and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests under 0, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 freeze-thaw cycles were conducted on cotton straw fiber-reinforced soil. It was found that the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of fiber-reinforced soil decreases exponentially with the number of freeze-thaw cycles. In addition, fiber reinforcement weakens the softening degree of frozen-thawed soil under unconfined states. The UCS reduction in fiber-reinforced soil under freeze-thaw conditions is smaller than the strength reduction at the fiber-soil interface because fiber reinforcement is mainly governed not only by the fiber-soil interface but also by the spatial stress network established by discrete fibers. The complex spatial stress network, which improves the reinforcement of the fibers, is monitored by SEM after freeze-thaw cycles.