Finite element analysis of reinforced sand under circular footing

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Msc. Candidate, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

2 Professor, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

3 PhD, Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt.

10.1088/1757-899X/974/1/012004

Abstract

This paper presents the results from numerical investigations carried out on circular footing rests on Geo-grid reinforced sand. The finite element program (Plaxis-2D) was used to study experimental results carried out by [1]. This experimental work was used to study the effect of variation of Geo–grid reinforced layers number (N = 0, 1, 2, and 3) under circular footing. The numerical validation with experimental work was considerably agreed with an average percentage of 93%. Then a parametric study was conducted to evaluate the soil performance under circular footing, while applying the same loading conditions. Several parameters have been investigated to identify the optimumsoil behaviour that achieves optimum bearing capacity and minimum settlement under the footing. The parameters include number of Geo-grid layers (N), the Geo-grid layer width (L), the spacing between the footing base and topmost Geo-grid layer (U), the spacing between Geo-grid layers (h) and the Geo-grid stiffness (K). The results indicated that by increasing the number and the width of the Geo-grid reinforced layers the bearing capacity ratio increases up to a limited extent. Moreover, the optimum number of Geo-grid layer equals four layers for circular footing.

Keywords