An experimental investigation on bearing capacity behavior of rectangular footing over reinforced soil slope

Various Geotechnical engineering works demand the construction of foundation over cohesive soil slope. The construction of foundation over these soils may cause higher settlement which can obliterate the overlying structure. On the other hand, the use of reinforcement techniques in the soil stability is also increasing rapidly. Amongst them, the use of geosynthetics to reinforce the foundation soil is one of the cost-effective options. In the present study, a number of model footing tests were performed in laboratory to check the effect of geosynthetics in the development of bearing capacity on shallow foundation resting over cohesive soil slope. For this purpose, a bi-oriented geo-grid was chosen as a reinforcement material. Parametric studies such as effective depth of reinforcement, number of reinforcement layers, were considered in the present study. A number of laboratory tests were conducted, and their results were analyzed. From the analysis it was observed that soil reinforced with geosynthetics overlain by rectangular footing showed substantial increase in ultimate bearing capacity of the reinforced soil, thus signifying the potential benefits of reinforcements in soil.