Bearing Capacity of Annular Ring Footings Resting on Reinforced Sand

Abstract

Bearing Capacity Of Annular Ring Footings Resting On Reinforced Sand One of the common methods for soil improvement in order to increase the bearing capacity of shallow foundations is reinforcing the soil using geosynthetics.  In this paper, the bearing capacity of ring footings on clay reinforced with geogrid has been studied. Laboratory and numerical investigation using the finite element computer code, Plaxis have been performed. The effects of different factors such as the distance to the first layer of reinforcement, vertical distances between layers, and the number of reinforcing layers, the optimum depth of the reinforcement and the stiffness of the reinforcements on the increase of the bearing capacity ratio, of circular and ring foundation have been examined.

Conclusion

On the basis of present experimental study, the following conclusions are drawn:

• The maximum and minimum dry density of sand was found out to be 1.62kg/m3 and 1.445 kg/m3 respectively based on which the maximum and minimum void ratio of the unreinforced sand sample was found out to be 0.89 and 0.59 respectively.
• The specific gravity of the sand sample was found out to be 2.59
• On the results of the Direct test conducted over the sand sample the values of cohension was found out to be zero. Thus concluding that sand is cohensionless in nature. The angle of internal friction (Φ) for sand samples of relative densities 0.3, 0.6, 0.75, 0.9 was found out to be 36°, 36.16°, 37°, 38°s respectively. Thus concluding that the value the angle of internal friction increases with the increase in the relative density of sand