Effect of Natural Reinforcement Aperture Shape on Bearing Capacity of Reinforced Soil

It is of interest, for a developing country like India, to use natural and low-cost reinforcement material in rural roads. Bamboo is a locally and cheaply available alternative as a reinforcement material in place of commercial geosynthetic materials. The tridirectional bamboo grid is a new innovative reinforcement of the limited life geotextiles (LLGs) family. The present paper reports the experimental results of plate load tests conducted on sand overlying a soft clay. The model plate load tests were carried out to study the influence of the tridirectional and bidirectional bamboo grid with jute geotextile on the bearing capacity of soft marine clay. A mild steel tank with dimensions of 0.7 m × 0.7 m × 0.6 m and a square model footing size of 100 mm × 100 mm were used for all laboratory model tests. It was observed that by making a suitable modification in the aperture shape of reinforcement, the bearing capacity and settlement resistance of soft clay could be improved. The model test results show that the tridirectional bamboo grid offers superior performance compared to the bidirectional bamboo grid.