Numerical Analysis of Reinforced Ring Foundation Subjected to Eccentric-Inclined Loading

Reinforced earth forms one of the ground improvement techniques using in-situ soil reinforcement for purposes of improving the strength and stiffness of soil, for instance, the use of Geosynthetics to increase the bearing capacity and decrease the settlement of foundations. In the past, various researches have been conducted to study the behavior of reinforced soil under various types of footings and loading conditions. However, the behavior of reinforced ring foundation is still a relatively unexplored area. But its use in geotechnical engineering is an economically viable alternative to circular foundation. Furthermore, it is used in a variety of special structures such as cooling towers, silos and oil storages, transmission towers etc. In the present study, numerical analyses of reinforced ring foundation subjected to eccentric-inclined loading have been performed using PLAXIS 3D. It has been observed that with the eccentric-inclined loading, the design of ring foundation may be permitted up to the ratio of internal to external radii of 0.1875 without compromising the bearing capacity of circular foundation with equal external diameter. The effect of soil reinforcement has been found to be the maximum when the depth of the first layer of reinforcement is kept within the range of (0.2B–0.4B), where B is the outer diameter of the ring foundation.