Bearing capacity and failure mechanism of nonwoven geotextile reinforced clay: A verification

Abstract

The paper presents a series of laboratory tests for California Bearing Ratio (CBR) to investigate the bearing capacity and the failure mechanism of nonwoven geotextile reinforced clay. The variation of the tests included the number of reinforcement layers and compaction energy. The results indicate that the nonwoven geotextile layers improve up to 49.5% of the CBR of the reinforced clay specimens. A cross-grab stick apparatus was developed to determine the deformed shape of the embedded reinforcement layer in the reinforced specimens after CBR tests. The obtained results illustrate the membrane tension effect of the geotextile layers to enhance the bearing capacity of the reinforced soil specimens. Last, the failure mechanisms of the nonwoven geotextile reinforced specimens were verified using measurement results of maximum relative deflection in reinforcement layers.