Bearing Capacity of Strip Footing Built on Geogrid-Reinforced Sand over Soft Clay Slope and Subjected to a Vertical Load

The present work deals with the study of the behavior of a rigid striped footing, resting on a sand slope reinforced by geo-grids and located above a soft clay layer. For this purpose, numerical analysis was conducted using finite element program; Plaxis software package; where the effects of some parameters on the strip footing behavior were studied. The affecting parameters such as the number of layers of geogrids, the vertical spacing, and the slope of the sand, the depth of reinforcement and the angle of friction of the sand were considered in soil reinforcement by geogrids based on multi-series of tests. The analysis results show an improvement in the soil bearing capacity at the level of the reinforcement depth, whatever the slope of the sand and its density (loose, moderately dense and dense). This improvement was related to the important number of reinforcing elements represented by a small vertical spacing of strips. Whereas, a significant deterioration of the soil bearing capacity was detected in the case of steep slopes of sand whatever the number of reinforcing strips and their vertical spacing.