PERFORMANCE OF ANISOTROPIC GEOSYNTHETIC- RE INFORCED COHESIVE SOIL MASS

ABSTRACT: This paper describes the performance of a unit cell of soil-geosynthetic composite inwhich the predominant construction a d loading conditions of a geo-synthetic-reinforced soil structure were simulated. A silty clay was reinforced with three types of geosynthetic, each having different mechanical nd hydraulic prop-erties, and consolidated isotropically or anisotropically before being sheared by plane strain compression. The effects these factors have on the performance of reinforced soil mass under draihed and undrained conditions were investigated. It was found that the consolidation stress ratio and the drainage condition during subsequent loading have a profound influence on the reinforcement effect. These factors affect he interaction between soil and geosynthetic, to the extent to which the tensile stress in the geosynthetic is mobilized and thus provides enhanced con-finement to the soil by increasing its strength and stiffness. The effects of mechanical properties of geosynthetic on the reinforcement effects were also investigated. Furthermore, the advantages of using permeable geosynthetic with the near-sat-urated cohesive soil were demonstrated through partially drained tests