Experimental and numerical investigation of centric and eccentric footing in reinforced sandy soil slope

Abstract

This paper presents the findings regarding the displacement-load behavior of both plane strain model experiments’ ultimate load and numerical analyses conducted on unreinforced and reinforced sand slopes loaded with strip footing. The investigated parameters include the impact of the reinforcement and varying eccentricity on the ultimate load and displacement of the strip footing. A group of finite element analyses was performed with the 3D plane strain model and the computer code ANSYS software to validate the results of the model experiments on a slope. The results from both the numerical analyses and model experiments suggested that the use of reinforcement could enhance the load–displacement behavior of the central and eccentrically loaded footings. The load–displacement curves demonstrated that a higher load eccentricity leads to a reduction in the ultimate load of the strip footing. The concordance between the computed and observed results was reasonably satisfactory for the load displacement and the overall behavioral trend.