An experimental study is carried out to improve the bearing capacity of soils by using geotextile. In the present study geotextile (tire reinforcement) is used as geotextile, whereas sand is used as a soil medium. This research work presents the results of laboratory load tests on model square footings supported on reinforced sand beds. A total of twenty-seven load tests are conducted to evaluate the effects of single layer reinforcement placed below square model footings. The parameters of the testing program of the research work are the depth of reinforcement, the plan area of reinforcement, and the number of reinforcements. From the experimental data, it is indicated that there is an optimum reinforcement depth at which the bearing capacity is the highest. Also, the optimum size of reinforcement is found to be 1.5 B×1.5 B irrespective of the type of reinforcing materials used. The bearing capacity of reinforced sand is also found to increase with the number of reinforcement layer and reinforcement size when the reinforcement is placed within a certain effective zone with high relative density. The optimum placement position of geotextile is found to be 0.5B to 0.75B from the base of the footing .The tests are done at two different relative densities, i.e., 40% and 60%. The bulk unit weight of sandy soil is 14.81 KN/m³. Maximum gain in load carrying capacity is obtained when depth of reinforcement/width of footing (Dr/B) is 0.5 at relative density of 40% and 0.75 at a relative density of 60%.In addition, the data indicate that increasing reinforcement beyond a certain value would not bring about further increase in the bearing capacity of the soil.

Deep excavations are frequently carried out near structural foundations in densely populated metropolitan areas. Those foundations surrounding the excavation site can impose additional lateral pressure on the retaining wall along with backfill pressure. A three-dimensional finite element analysis has been performed in the present study to determine the effect of square and circular footings of the same plan area on the sheet pile wall behaviour. A parametric study is performed by varying the plan area of footing, embedded depth of sheet pile, magnitude of surcharge loads, position of footing above and below the backfill surface from the top edge of the wall, the depth of the loose soil layer, and dredge line slope angle to find out the wall deflection, bending moment, and backfill ground settlement. The results show that the effect of square and circular footing highly influences the wall and backfill soil. However, the effect of square footing on the wall and backfill soil is more substantial than that of circular footing for the same plan area.

footing is an important part of a structure, because its repair is extremely difficult and cumbersome. Therefore, all structural parameters should be carefully considered when designing a footing. An isolated footing needs sufficient depth, when considering the fixed base assumption. Extensive research has previously been conducted to define and formalize the depth of a rigid footing, i. e., the depth required, such that footing behaves as a rigid. Alternatively, working stress method (WSM) and limit state method (LSM) provide a lower depth for low subgrades and a higher depth for high subgrades than that required by rigid condition if a unit width footing is considered for the design. This paper presents a simple approach for calculating the depth to meet the rigid condition under static loading. The proposed calculation method produced a better rigidity than the existing approaches and it correlated well to the finite-element method (FEM) for low subgrades. The reinforcement distribution is function of the bending moment (BM). Steel is uniformly embedded throughout the length or width of conventional footing methods, but this is inappropriate, because the bending moment is not uniform along the length or width of the footing. This paper proposes solutions to this by redefining the placement of steel in the central zone of the footing. The effective zone for reinforcement was based on the FEM results. This simple procedure was developed for calculating the maximum moment using the Diagonal Strip Method (DSM). DSM is a substitute for FEM, and it has been shown to correlate well. The BM at central zone as well as at the edges can be calculated to define the spacing of the reinforcements.

The present work aims to assess the pressure-settlement behaviour of sand beds under a square footing reinforced with coir geotextile using the PLAXIS 3D software. The angle of internal friction of sand was varied from 28° to 38°. The effect of length of coir geotextile (1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, and 5B; B is width of footing) and position of coir geotextile (0.2B, 0.4B, 0.6B, 0.8B, and 1B) to ultimate bearing capacity of sand were examined. A remarkable improvement in ultimate bearing capacity of sand beds was obtained with provision of coir geotextiles.  It was observed that the bearing capacity of sand increases by placing coir geotextiles up to a depth of 0.4B from base of footing, thereafter it starts decreasing. The optimum length of coir geotextile was found as 4B-5B. An insignificant improvement in the bearing capacity ratio of sand reinforced with coir geotextile was observed at higher values of angle of internal friction.

Methods to improve bearing capacity of footing resting of collapsing soil can, in fact, take two approaches, improving soil strength properties and intrusion of reinforcing sorces into soil. The footing is modeled by a square steel plate 0.1 by 0.1 m. The footing is loaded as to have a stress of 40 kPa and settlement is receded in dry and in soaking conditions. Two depths of the geo-mesh reinforcement are used, one B (B is width of footing) and 0.5B. For one B depth, three different square sizes of geo-mesh are used, 4B, 6B, and 8B. For the reinforcement depth of 0.5B the three sizes of the geo-mesh used are, 3.5B, 5.5B, and, 7.5B. Results reveal that the best improvement obtained is the case of square geo-mesh width of 7.5B and located at depth of B/2 under footing, with an improvement in terms of collapse settlement of 35%, and a settlement reduction in dry condition of 50%. The least improvement is the case of square geo-mesh with width of 4B and depth of one B, and it was really negligible, about 4% decrease in collapse settlement. Other cases varied between the two mentioned ratios. For findings of study, author recommends not to use geomesh size less than size of footing and not to place it in a depth more than half footing width. As such, in a whole, the effectiveness of geomesh in reducing the settlement of collapsing soil is obvious if used in proper way.

In this paper, a novel numerical approach is proposed for determination of a lower bound solution for the bearing capacity of strip footings. In this method, the geometry of problem is constructed by nodes and, there is no need for mesh in the traditional sense. The gradient of stress is smoothed piecemeal by the aid of the stabilized nodal integration technique and, the equilibrium and boundary conditions are fully satisfied at the entire domain consequently. The stress field is discretized by a mesh-free technique called Shepard's method. Due to the individual properties of Shepard's shape functions, the non-yielding condition is just controlled at the nodes. Putting the objective function and the related constraints together forms a mathematical optimization problem which is solved by a linear programming technique. At the end, the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method is investigated by solving some examples for the cohesive soils with uniform and depth dependent shear strength, and the cohesive-frictional soil.

The shear behavior of the reinforced concrete plates at the junction of rectangular walls were experimentally studied. Four tests were conducted on rectangular reinforced concrete plates which were simply set on edge supports. The centrically located rectangular walls with different aspect ratios were connected to the plates. The load was applied eccentrically with different amount of eccentricity for each plate and was increased with a monotonic procedure. All plates were failed at the brittle-punching mode of failure. Following the punching failure, the plates were forced to carry increasing displacements until reaching to extremely large rotations while stabilizing a post-peak strength. The load-deflection behavior of the connections was simulated performing the nonlinear analyses of numerical models of the plates using specially purposed software, ATENA. The results of the experimental tests were compared with the outputs of the analyses and with the predictions of ACI and EC2 codes.

When soil beneath a foundation is weak and cannot bear applied loads, an appropriate method of soil improvement is essential. In cases where weak soil is improved by a replacing method, the improvement depth, due to the stress distribution pattern, is of great importance.However, in some cases, it is very difficult or too expensive to provide enough improvement depth. Hence, additional bearing capacity or other improvement methods are required. Using a geogrid to reinforce soil is an effective alternative way to improve the bearing capacity more effectively and economically.In this paper, the effect of replacing a loose layer by a dense one on the bearing capacity and settlement of a strip footing has initially been investigated. Then, the influence of a geogrid layer placed on the interface of loose and dense layers is analyzed and investigated using finite difference FLAC software. The numerical model is verified and calibrated using experimental data from a physical model developed in the Soil Laboratory of Amirkabir University.Analyses results show that increasing the depth of compacted soil layer by more than times the width of the foundation, does not have a considerable effect on the ultimate bearing capacity of strip footings, and only settlements will decrease. Using a geogrid layer between loose and compacted soil will improve the bearing capacity greatly, for a modified depth less than times the width of the foundation' The most efficient improvement in this method is when the geogrid layer is placed on the boundary of loose and dense layers at a depth of the foundation width. The efficiency of reinforcement is reduced by increasing the improvement depth. Using a reinforced layer with a width of less than times the foundation width is not recommended.

The rigid base proximity (such as stiff rock) under a relatively thin sand stratum and employing a 3D reinforcement (e. g. geocell) can tend to significant improvement in the bearing pressure of shallow footings. In this study, the behavior of circular footings located on unreinforced and geocell-reinforced thin sand layer was investigated. The simultaneous or individual effect of footing dimensions, sand layer thickness, and geocell reinforcement on the bearing pressure and settlement was studied by conducting large-scale model tests. The influence of soil layer thickness on footing behavior was elucidated by considering optimum dimensions and location for geocell reinforcement. Based on the results, improvement in the bearing capacity and settlement reduction for both unreinforced and reinforced footing bed was seen when the sand layer thickness is lower than two times of the footing width. Additionally, the effectiveness depth of the rigid base for both cases was obtained two times of footing width. The combination of geocell reinforcement and rigid base as lateral and vertical confinement factors, led to increase in the bearing capacity and settlement reduction at the failure point up to 45% and 53%, respectively. The tests results were served to define new factors extending classical bearing capacity equations for footings located on thin soil at reinforced and unreinforced cases. The comparision of this study’, s achievement with the previous investigations confirmed their good agreement.