Enhancing splitting tensile strength of biocarbonated reactive magnesia-based sand using polypropylene fiber reinforcement

This short communication investigates the involvement of polypropylene fibers in the biocarbonated reactive magnesia cement mixes to improve the splitting tensile strength of sand for soil improvement. By varying the RMC content (5 and 10% by weight of sand) and fiber content (0, 0.5, and 1% by weight of sand), a suitable mix design was determined. The test results showed that the peak tensile strength of biocarbonated RMC-based sand samples with an optimum fiber content of 1% could improve by more than 4 times compared to the biocarbonated sand without fiber reinforcement. This was attributed to the generation of hydrated magnesium carbonates with the microbially induced CO₂/carbonate process, bonding the fiber–matrix and eliminating the brittleness, consequently enhancing the tensile ductility of biocarbonated sand.