Reinforced granular fill-soft soil system: confinement effect

Abstract

A new mathematical model has been developed for the analysis of a reinforced foundation bed by incorporating the confinement effect of a single layer of reinforcement. It is quantified in terms of the average increase in confining pressure due to the reinforcement from which modified shear stiffnesses of the granular soil surrounding the reinforcement are obtained. Parametric studies for plane strain conditions show that the confinement effect of reinforcement leads to an improved mechanical response over the unreinforced granular fill-soft soil foundation system. © 1995.