Bearing Capacity of Square Footing on Hybrid Geosynthetic Reinforced Granular Fill Over Soft Soil

Abstract

In soft soils, ground improvement techniques are the widely adopted methods for improving the load bearing capacities. Hybrid geosynthetic is utilized to improve the load carrying capacity of the soft soil in this study. The conclusions of this project are suitable to all problems where the load carrying capacity of the soil is a major issue (e.g., foundations, embankments, pavements). In this report, the load carrying capacity of square footings on geosynthetic reinforced granular fill placed over the soft soil is studied. The footing consisted of a rigid square steel plate with a dimension 120 × 120 mm (B). On both homogeneous and layered foundation systems, a series of laboratory model tests were conducted. The layered systems were made up of dense sand of different layer thicknesses (H = 0.5–1.1B) overlying the soft soil subgrades. The tests used planar geogrid, nonwoven coir geotextile and hybrid geosynthetic reinforcements. The effectiveness of hybrid geosynthetic in improving the bearing capacity of soft soil was evaluated by conducting laboratory plate-load test. The findings revealed that footing settlement, layer thickness (H), and reinforcement type all had a significant impact on foundation efficiency. In this analysis, a maximum of about 4.67-times increase in the ultimate bearing capacity was noticed. The findings showed that using hybrid geosynthetic reinforcement at the sand-soft soil interface can enhance the foundation beds performance.