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Natural and Artificial Fibers in Geoengineering Applications

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 823

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Geotechnics and Roads, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
Interests: geotechnics; advanced laboratory and field testing; sustainable geotechnical environmental engineering; weak soils; soil improvement
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Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand
Interests: earthquake geotechnical engineering and related problems; geo-disaster risk assessment and mitigation; development of advanced laboratory and field-testing devices; sustainable geotechnical engineering; ground improvement techniques; computational geotechnics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Geomechanics, Institute of Hydro-Engineering, Polish Academy of Sciences, 80-328 Gdańsk, Poland
Interests: geotechnics; sustainable geotechnical environmental engineering; soil improvement; modeling of engineering structure behavior

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Guest Editor
Institute of Innovation, Science and Sustainability, Federation University, Churchill, VIC 3842, Australia
Interests: expansive/reactive soils; green geomaterials; ground improvement; soil polymerisation; unsaturated soils and geomaterials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For many years, soil improvement techniques have been introduced and verified both in the laboratory and in the field. These methods include dynamic methods (e.g., impact compaction) or other techniques of soil reinforcement with various additives, such as the traditional ones: lime, cement, and fly ash, or non-traditional ones: rubber waste, natural fibers, and artificial fibers.

The use of natural fibers (plant, animal, and mineral) and artificial fibers in geoengineering, especially for improving/strengthening weak soil, including for the needs of road and rail transport, is of great interest among researchers. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to present different solutions in the field of sustainable geotechnics and bring together the state of the art in modern geotechnics using natural wastes (e.g., fibers of flax/palm/jute/sisal/bamboo/hemp/kenaf/sawdust and others, spent coffee grounds, the feathers of chickens/birds, human hairs, eggshells/seashells, etc.) and artificial wastes (e.g., fibers of PP/PET/PE/PVA, glass fibers, nylon fibers, etc.).

All the above-mentioned additives are most often used to improve soft soils. However, the effect of such an improvement requires finding the optimal mixture proportions and mixing techniques, and thus experimental verification in the laboratory and in situ, which is often not so simple.

It is our pleasure to invite you to present, in the form of research articles or review papers, your own experience in planning and implementing advanced laboratory tests with the mixtures mentioned above. This Special Issue will cover all the newest results and trends in the research, modeling, and testing of contemporary soil–other material (natural and artificial fibers) mixtures. This invitation is addressed to a wide group of scientists and practitioners working in the field of sustainable geotechnical engineering.

Prof. Dr. Małgorzata Jastrzębska
Dr. Gabriele Chiaro
Dr. Krystyna Kazimierowicz-Frankowska
Dr. Amin Soltani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • soft soil improvement
  • plant fibers
  • animal fibers
  • mineral fibers
  • artificial fibers
  • natural waste materials
  • biodegradability
  • biocomposites
  • recycling
  • sustainability in geotechnics
  • environmental geotechnics
  • modeling of soil/non-traditional additive mixtures
  • laboratory procedures
  • experimental testing
  • mechanical and physical parameters of soil–fiber mixtures

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

21 pages, 3080 KiB  
Review
Use of Alternative Materials in Sustainable Geotechnics: State of World Knowledge and Some Examples from Poland
by Małgorzata Jastrzębska
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(6), 3352; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15063352 - 19 Mar 2025
Viewed by 295
Abstract
Geotechnical engineering projects carried out within the framework of the low-emission economy and the circular economy are the subject of many publications. Some of these studies present the use of various waste materials, as soil additives, for improving geomechanical behavior/properties. Many of these [...] Read more.
Geotechnical engineering projects carried out within the framework of the low-emission economy and the circular economy are the subject of many publications. Some of these studies present the use of various waste materials, as soil additives, for improving geomechanical behavior/properties. Many of these materials are eagerly used in geoengineering applications, primarily to strengthen weak subsoil or as a base layer in road construction. Information on individual applications and types of these materials is scattered. For this reason, this article briefly discusses most of the major waste materials used for achieving weak-soil improvement in geoengineering applications, and highlights pertinent bibliographic sources where relevant details can be found. The presented list includes waste from mines, thermal processes, end-of-life car tires, chemical processes (artificial/synthetic fibers), and from construction, renovation and demolition works of existing buildings and road infrastructure. The presentation of various applications is supplemented with three dynamically developing innovative technologies based on nanomaterials, microorganisms (MICP, EICP) and lignosulfonate. In addition to the positive impact of using waste (or technologies) instead of natural and raw materials, the paper encourages the reader to ponder whether the waste used really meets the criteria for ecological solutions and what is the economic feasibility of the proposed implementations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural and Artificial Fibers in Geoengineering Applications)
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