Impacts of a nonwoven geotextile arrangement on load-bearing capacity of reinforced sand: a laboratory study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of 135 laboratory model tests performed on square footings resting on the nonwoven geotextile–reinforced sand. Unlike in most previous investigations, in this study, the vertical spacing between the geotextile layers was not constant. On the other words, 12 different arrangements with three relative densities and with two plates were examined. At the first step, the effect of the first layer thickness of geotextile, the width of geotextile, as well as vertical spacing and number of geotextile layers on the bearing capacity of footings were investigated. As a result, the experimental results comprehensively exhibited that nonwoven geotextiles increase the bearing capacity of footings in all cases. It was found that the optimum values of vertical spaces between geotextile layers with different distances from the upper layer are ranging from 0.3 to 0.4B. Additionally, the results suggested that the bearing capacity ratio increases gradually with the increase in the relative density.