Numerical studies of ring foundations on geogrid-reinforced sand

Abstract

Numerical predictions of the ultimate bearing capacity of ring foundations supported by a sand bed with and without geogrid reinforcement are presented. Numerical analyses of the test models were carried out using the finite element package Plaxis. It is shown that the behaviour of ring foundations on sand beds may be reasonably well represented by the hardening soil model available in the Plaxis package. The hardening soil model parameters were derived from the results of drained triaxial tests. The parameters investigated are the effect of depth of first reinforcement layer, the number of reinforcement layers and reinforcement layer size on the ultimate bearing capacity of ring foundations. The results from the finite element analysis are in very good agreement with the experimental observations. The results of this study showed that the reinforcement had a considerable effect on the ultimate bearing capacity of the ring foundations. It was also shown that ultimate bearing capacity values can, depending on the reinforcement geogrid arrangement, be improved by up to three times that of the unreinforced case for the model arrangements investigated.

Planar geosynthetic-reinforced soil foundations: a review

“…The shape of the footing, such as strip footing, square footing, circular footing, rectangular footing and ring footing (see Fig. 4), and the size of the footing, such as the width, length, diameter, ratio of length to width, have an effect on the load-settlement characteristics [2,5,13]. In addition, the buried depth of the footing affects the load-settlement behaviors of the foundation.…”

“…The backfill, reinforcement and soil-reinforcement interface are considered and simulated separately in the numerical models [10,14,18,42]. In the literature, the finite element software for modeling reinforced foundation is PLAXIS 2D or 3D [13,[15][16][17]. In the models, the geogrid or plate structural element is generally used to simulate the reinforcement and the behavior of structural elements is modeled as linear-elastic material.…”

“…Many researchers have investigated the performance of GRS foundations under footing load. A large amount of model tests was conducted to study the load-settlement behavior of GRS foundations under strip footing [2][3][4], circular footing [5,6], square footing [7][8][9][10], rectangular footing [11,12] and ring footing [13]. In addition to experimental studies, numerical modellings were used to validate the results of model tests and investigate the effect of various influencing factors on the performance of GRS foundations.…”

The Effect of Geonet Reinforcement on Bearing Capacity of Low-Compacted Soft Clay

“…Various techniques (e.g., replacement with granular soil, compaction, stone columns, pre-loading, reinforcement) can be employed to improve bearing capacity and settlement characteristics of soft soil. The effects of geosynthetic reinforcements on bearing capacity and settlement of different soil types have been extensively investigated [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. In general, the majority of previous works consider a reinforced sand bed and propose to replace the soft soil with compacted sand or stabilize the soft soil with granular soils [3,28,29].…”

Improved simulation method for soil-geogrid interaction of reinforced earth structure in FEM

“…The finite element method (FEM) has been used in simulating the behavior of geogrid-reinforced soil structures [8][9][10] . It is efficient for the prediction of displacements, strains, and forces generated in the reinforcement at the failure as well as during deformation.…”