Palavras-Chave: melhoramento de solos, solos lateríticos, fibras recicladas, sustentabilidade.
ABSTRACTAs it is a developing country, Brazil has a large steelmaking industry, responsible for a large part of its GDP, in 2014, the mining production reached US $ 40 billion, which represented around 5% of the country's Industrial GDP. Another relevant primary sector to the Brazilian economy is the textile industries, which year after year expand their activities considerably in the national territory. The two sectors mentioned above generate in their industrial processes a large amount of waste of textile fiber and ceramic fibers, which in most cases are not recycled or disposed properly, generating considerable environmental problems. As an alternative to give an appropriate use to discarded fibers, a methodology is proposed in the present research for the use of recycled ceramic fibers and textile, called PROMEX fibers, in the improvement of lateritic soils, seeking to give applications to the composite in geotechnical engineering. For comparison purposes, fibers were mixed to the lateritic soil of Brasília in a proportion of 0.5% in relation to the dry mass of the soil, and comparing the effect with a soil in its natural state. In the evaluation of the mechanical properties changes, cylindrical specimens were compacted through the mini-MCV methodology of 50 mm in diameter, evaluating tensile strength, compressive strength and shear strength in compacted specimens according to the Proctor methodology. Within the main conclusions of the research it was possible to establish that the incorporation of ceramic fibers considerably improves the mechanical performance of the soil, and the PROMEX fiber obtained better results for the shear strength test. key-words: improvement of soils, lateritic soils, recycled fibers, sustainability.