BEARING CAPACITY OF RECTANGULAR FOOTINGS ON GEOGRID-REINFORCED SAND

A study was undertaken to investigate the bearing capacity of rectangu lar footings on geogrid-reinforced sand by performing laboratory model rests as well as finite-element analyses. The effects of the depth to the first layer of reinforcement, vertical spacing of reinforcement l ayers, number of reinforcement layers, and the size of reinforcement s heet on the bearing capacity were investigated. Both the experimental and analytical studies indicated that there was an optimum reinforceme nt embedment depth at which the bearing capacity was the highest when single-layer reinforcement was used. Also, there appeared to be an opt imum reinforcement spacing for multi-layer reinforced sand. The bearin g capacity of reinforced sand was also found to increase with reinforc ement layer number and reinforcement size when the reinforcement was p laced within a certain effective zone. In addition, the analysis indic ated that increasing reinforcement stiffness beyond a certain value wo uld not bring about further increase in the bearing capacity.