Assessment of Seismic Bearing Capacity of a Strip Footing Resting on Reinforced Earth Bed using Pseudo-Static Analysis

Abstract

The use of geosynthetic reinforcement to enhance the ultimate load-bearing capacity and reduce the anticipated settlement of the shallow foundation has gained sufficient attention in the geotechnical field. The improved performance of the shallow foundation is achieved by providing one or more layers of geosynthetics below the foundation. The full wraparound technique proved to be efficient for the confinement of soil mass and reduction in settlement of foundation however lacks the literature to ascertain the performances of such footing under dynamic loading. In view of the above, the present study examines the effect of geosynthetic layers having a finite length with full wraparound ends as a reinforcement layer, placed horizontally at a suitable depth below the foundation using the finite element modeling (FEM) and evaluates the ultimate load-bearing capacity of a strip footing resting on loose and dense coarse-grained earth beds under seismic loading and further compared to those of footing resting on unreinforced earth bed. Moreover, the effect of horizontal seismic acceleration coefficient (k<sub>h</sub>) on the ultimate load-bearing capacity has been investigated by varying k<sub>h</sub> from 0.1 to 0.6 at an interval of 0.1, for both reinforced and unreinforced earth bed having loose and dense soil strata. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that by adopting the new practice of using the geosynthetic reinforcement with the full wraparound ends in foundations, it is possible to support relatively heavier structures under static as well as dynamic loading without allowing large footing settlements. From the outcomes of the present study, it is noted that the ultimate load-bearing capacity of footing resting on loose and dense sand bed found to be improved by 60% and 18% for soils having friction angle of 25° and 40°, respectively compared to respective unreinforced earth beds under static condition.