Abstract: (39058 Views)
Conventional investigations on the behavior of reinforced and unreinforced soils are often
investigated at the failure point. In this paper, a new concept of comparison of the behavior of
reinforced and unreinforced soil by estimating the strength and strength ratio (deviatoric stress of
reinforced sample to unreinforced sample) at various strain levels is proposed. A comprehensive set
of laboratory triaxial compression tests was carried out on wet (natural water content) non-plastic
beach silty sand with and without geotextile. The layer configurations used are one, two, three and
four horizontal reinforcing layers in a triaxial test sample. The influences of the number of
geotextile layers and confining pressure at 3%, 6%, 9%, 12% and 15% of the imposed strain levels
on sample were studied and described. The results show that the trend and magnitude of strength
ratio is different for various strain level. It implies that using failure strength from peak point or
strength corresponding to the axial-strain approximately 15% to evaluate the enhancement of
strength or strength ratio due to reinforcement may cause hazard and uncertainty in practical
design. Hence, it is necessary to consider the strength of reinforced sample compared with
unreinforced sample at the imposed strain level. Only one type of soil and one type of geotextile
were used in all tests.
Type of Study:
Research Paper |