Physical Modeling of the Effect of Using Scaled Geosynthetic Reinforcements on Bearing Capacity and Settlement of Strip Footing
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 7
Abstract
This study evaluated the strip foundation bearing capacity and settlement on sandy soil reinforced with scaled geocomposite and geotextile by laboratory model testing. Therefore, several reinforcement compounds were used in different layers (one to four), including identical and various vertical distances from each other and the footing base. The geocomposite used in this study consisted of geogrid and geotextile layers. The most crucial consideration in this research was the application of scaled reinforcement with a factor of 7.5 to create more precise laboratory models. Based on the results, all models failed in the lower settlement, which in most cases was 7% of the width of the footing. Test results indicated that the maximum increasing factor in bearing pressure of foundation in the case of ultimate bearing was 3.4, which could be related to using four layers of geocomposite at optimal distances. The percentage of decreasing footing settlement at the maximum value was about 86% in the two-layer geocomposite state. Its value remained constant with increasing number of layers. Percentage variation in bearing capacity value indicated that geotextile had a better performance in increasing the bearing capacity at the high settlement level. It was close to the values of the geocomposite.
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Acknowledgments
This research was carried out in the Department of Civil and Earth Resources Engineering at the Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University. The authors express their sincere thanks to Amin Majidi and Naeim Pishehvarzad for the useful and constructive comments provided.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- B
- width of the footing;
- C
- cohesion (kN/m2);
- Cc
- coefficient of curvature (dimensionless);
- Cu
- coefficient of uniformity (dimensionless);
- D10
- 10% of the soil particles are finer than this size (mm);
- D60
- 60% of the soil particles are finer than this size (mm);
- GC
- geocomposite;
- GT
- geotextile;
- Gs
- specific gravity of soil solids (dimensionless);
- IFP
- increasing factor in bearing pressure of footing (dimensionless);
- LGC
- length of the geocomposite reinforcement (mm);
- LGT
- length of the geotextile reinforcement (mm);
- N
- number of reinforcement layers;
- PDS
- percentage of decrease in footing settlement (%);
- PVB
- percentage of variation in bearing capacity (%);
- qGc
- bearing pressure in using geocomposite reinforcement (kPa);
- qGT
- bearing pressure in using geotextile reinforcement (kPa);
- qp
- bearing pressure of footing on the reinforced soil (kPa);
- qun
- bearing pressure of the footing on the unreinforced sand at a given settlement (kPa);
- S
- settlement of the strip footing;
- SP
- settlement of the reinforced sand at a given bearing pressure corresponding to the Sun(mm);
- Sun
- settlement of the unreinforced sand at a given bearing pressure (mm);
- U
- vertical spacing of reinforcements (mm);
- φ
- friction angle (degree);
- ωopt
- optimum moisture content (%); and
- γd
- special dry weight (kN/m3).
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23 • Issue 7 • July 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 25, 2022
Accepted: Feb 19, 2023
Published online: May 5, 2023
Published in print: Jul 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Oct 5, 2023
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