Optimization of polymer materials performance on improving mechanical properties of fine-grained soils of forest.

The present study aimed to determine the best performance of polymeric materials (RPP and CBR Plus) in various types of fine-grained soil, and the optimal percentage of polymeric materials and curing time such that the best performance in soil stabilisation can be achieved. To this end, the Taguchi and Taguchi-GRA methods were adopted to optimise swelling potential and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) for each additive. The comparison of optimal states of two materials showed that the CBR Plus has a superior performance compared to RPP in increasing the UCS and reducing the swelling of soil. The best performance in increasing the UCS was obtained for CH specimen with 0.9% treatment with CBR Plus and curing time of 14 days. The best performance of CBR Plus in reducing soil swelling occurs when it is used on the ML soil modified with 0.07% CBR plus at the curing time of 8 days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]