The cavity’s effect on the bearing capacity of a shallow footing in reinforced slope sand

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study for the effect of the cavity on the behaviour of a strip footing positioned on a reinforced sand slope. This study used a new type of geosynthetics called fiber carbon and fiber glass. These components have the potential to isolate the soil inside the geosynthetic and prevent shears stress mobilization. The investigation aimed to determine the effect of cavity depth (h) and the number of reinforcing layers (N) on the bearing capacity and settlement characteristics of footing, empirically for investigating the effect of cavity on the bearing capacity, some parameters were assumed constant in all tests, for example, relative density, a distance of the footing from the slope edge, and length between layers of reinforcement. The variable parameters are the distance between footings and centre of cavity and the number of reinforcing layers. The results show that the settlement behaviour of footing adjacent to a soil slope is significantly affected by h and N. It is observed that qu, which represents the ultimate bearing capacity, improves with an increase in N. The influence of the cavity appeared insignificant when it was positioned at a depth equal to twice the width of footing.