Embedded strip footing in a geotextile-reinforced sand slope

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of dense sand slopes supporting an embedded strip footing, considering both unreinforced and geotextile-reinforced cases. The effect of footing location, defined in terms of embedment depth D and edge distance e, on the bearing capacity of the footing was investigated. The results show that the bearing capacity of the footing increased with an increase in D and e. The inclusion of one layer of geotextile reinforcement in the dense sand slope further increased the bearing capacity. This benefit was expressed in terms of BCR_u, which is defined as the ratio of the ultimate bearing capacity for the reinforced case to the ultimate bearing capacity for the unreinforced case. The maximum value of BCR_u( ≈ 2·5 − 3) was observed for D/B = 0 and e/B = 0 where B is the width of the footing, while the minimum value of BCR_u( ≈ 1·5) was obtained for D/B =  1 and e/B = 3.