Pullout tests on geogrids buried in lateritic soils

Lateritic soils are abundant on many terraces in Taiwan. It has been planned to use these lateritic soils as backfilling materials for earth reinforcement structures. Laboratory pullout tests were conducted using polymeric geogrids buried in lateritic soils, for the purpose of better understanding on the interaction behavior between polymeric geogrids and lateritic soils. Tested lateritic soil properties, testing equipment, specimen preparation and testing procedures are presented for displacement rate controlled pullout tests. Preliminary test results were reported and discussed in this paper.