Soil-Geogrid Interaction Behavior under Wet Condition

Heavy rainfall is considered to be the main cause of the slope failures that cause collapse catastrophically without prior warning. Therefore in order to investigate the effect of rainfall on the stability of geogrid reinforced soil structures, this paper presents the result from a series of pullout tests for investigating interface behavior between soil and geogrid. By varying the water content of soil sample, the interaction behavior is determined by carrying out pullout tests in a displacement-rate controlled manner. The main test results obtained are presented, followed by discussion on the shear behavior of the soil-geogrid interface considering the effect of moisture content. It is shown that the normal stress level and interface water presence dominate the shear behavior of the soil-geogrid interface in the pullout tests.