ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Earth and Planetary Materials
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1605929
Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of Plant Fiber Reinforced BFS-MS Geopolymer: An Orthogonal Design Approach
Provisionally accepted
- 1China Communications Third Shipping Engineering Bureau Co., Ltd., shanghai, China
- 2Ccid Urban Construction (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., chongqing, China
- 3Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
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Foundation pit engineering usually encounters the problems of foundation reinforcement and mud soil (MS) disposal. This study proposes a solidification technology utilizing blast furnace slag (BFS)-MS based geopolymer, enhanced by renewable plant fibers, to achieve resource utilization of MS.The key parameters including activator modulus, alkali content, water-to-solid ratio, and MS replacement rate were systematically optimized through orthogonal experimental design. Based on considering the mechanical properties and economy, the pretreated wood (WF), jute (JF) and bamboo (BF) fibers were incorporated respectively to study the influence of plant fiber type and content on the mechanical properties of geopolymer. The results demonstrated that the optimal parameters for BFS-MS precursors were activator modulus 1.7 and alkali content 0.2. The BFS-MS geopolymer under the optimal ratio of 28 days can reach 43.56 MPa, maintaining excellent potential for engineering application even at 30% MS replacement. At 1.0% dosage, WF, JF and BF enhanced the 28-day compressive strength by 27.80%, 12.35% and 29.05% respectively. The microstructural analysis revealed that geopolymer gels derived from BFS hydration dominated early strength development, while potentially active minerals in MS contributed to later stage strength enhancement. This study provides theoretical and technical foundations for MS utilization and fiber-reinforced geopolymer design in sustainable construction practices.
Keywords: mud soil, Blast furnace slag, Plant fibers, Orthogonal experimental design, Uniaxial compressive strength, geopolymer
Received: 04 Apr 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhu, Chang, Zhu, Li, Zhang and Haifeng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kai Zhang, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Lu Haifeng, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
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