Jeurnal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering x (215) 1-9 Bet? Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Journal homepage: www.rockgeotech.org Full length article Load eccentricity effects on behavior of circular footings reinforced with geogrid sheets Ehsan Badakhshan’, Ali Noorzad Fay of i, Wer & Environmental Engineering Shahid Behesht Univers, Tehran. an ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT inthis paper an experimental study for an eccentically loaded circular Tooting, resting on a geogrid reinforced sand bed, is performed. To achieve this aim. the steel model footing of 120 mm in diameter snd sand in relative density of 6D% are used. Also, the elects of depth of frst and second geogrd layers and number of reinforcement layers (1-4) on the settlement-load response and tit of footing under ‘atious lad eccentricities (0m, 075 em 15cm, 225 em a3 em) are investigated. Test results indicate that ulimate bearing capacity increases in compatison with unreinforced condition. tis observed that he reinforcements are placed inthe optimum embedment depth (u/D = 0.42 and h{D = 042) the ing capacity ratio (BCR) increases with increasing load eccentricity tothe core boundary of footing. and that with further increase of load eccentricity the BCK decreases, Besides, the tit of footing increases lineatly with increasing settlement. Finally, by reinforcing the sand bed, che it of foaing decreases at 2 layers of reinforcement ané then increases by increasing the number of reinforcement layers. © 2015 Institute of Rock ané Soil Mechanics. Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by lsevier BV. All rights reserved 1. Introduction In civil engineering, most of foundations, especially foundations. with industrial application, are subjected to horizontally seismic and wind forces, in addition to vertical forces that cause eccentric Toading. I is reported by several researchers that the eccentric Toading reduces the soil bearing capacity (eg. Eastwood, 1955, Dhillon, 1961; Gratdet and Kerisel, 1965; Lee, 1965; Michalowski and You, 1998; Mahiyar and Patel, 2000; Taiebat and Carter 2002). Meyerhof (1953) reported that when a strip or rectangular foundation is subjected to an eccentric load, the contact pressure decreases lneatly from toe to heel, and subsequently proposed the concept of effective width, Prakash and Saran (1977) provided a comprehensive mathematical formulation to estimate ultimate beating capacity and settlement for strip foundations in a cohesive soil subjected to eccentric loading, Purkayastina and Char (1977) proposed a reduction factor method for continuous foundations supported by sand. For high silos, refinery towers, wind turbines and chimneys, circular foundation is more economical than any other form of footing, and this is because direction of overturning Peet cevew under responsiblity ef institute ef Kock and S Chinese Aeceny of Scenes 1Hs1795 ©2015 Insitute of Kock and Soll Mechanic, Chinese Academy of scence. reduction and hosting by Esvier BV. Al rghs reserved hep edrgi10z016) mee 201508-006 Mechanics, n wind and earthquake isnot fixed and load eccentricity always, sin one way, Im the case of circular foundations under eccentric loading, Highter and Anders (1985) provided a graphical solution to deter- imine the effective area, The effective area is defined as an equiva- lent area of footing which can be loaded centrally when a vertical load is applied at a location other than the centroid of footing os ‘when 2 foundation is subjected to a centric load and momentum. Moreover, Meverhot (1953) and Vesic 1973) suggested an equation to calculate the effective atea in circular footing. In the last four decades, geosynthetics application has been known as a common technique to increase the ultimate beating capacity of soils and decrease the settlement of footing. Yetimughu etal. (1994), Adams and Collin (1997), Alawaji (2001), Ghosh et al. (2005), Kumar et al. (2007), Mosallanezhad et al. (2008), Latha and Somwanshi (2009}, Vinod et al. (2008), and Moghaddas Tafreshi and Dawson (2010) reported when the reinforcements are placed in the opti- ‘mum depth from the surface of footing (strip, square, rectangular foundations), the maximum beneficial effect of reinforcement can be achieved. However, few researches have been carried out in the field of sand or clay reinforced with geosynthetic layers. These re- searches have considered centrically loaded circular foundations in comparison with other foundations. Boushelnrian and Hataf (2003) found that, for the circular foot ings on reinforced sand, the maximum bearing capacity occurs at different values of embedment depth ratio depending on the ‘numberof reinforcement layers N and that, for the ratio of w/D (us the embedment depth of first layer of reinforcement, and D is the diameter of circular footing) greater than one, reinforcement layers Please cite this article in press as: Badakiishan E, Noorzad A, Load eccentricity effects on behavior of circular footings reinforced with geogrid sheets, Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (2015), http:|/dxdoiorg|10.1016);jrmge2015.08.0052 dais A. Nord Jou of Rock Mechanics nd Gatch Engineering (2015) 1-8 have no significant effect on bearing capacity. They also explained that choosing a rigid reinforcement does not always lead toa better effect on bearing capacity. Basulhar et al, (2007) carried out a numerical analysis to study the behavior of circular footings with different sizes resting on reinforced sand with geotextile and found that with an increase in number of reinforcement layers, the set- ‘lement gradually decreases ata decreasing rate. Lovisa etal, (2010) studied the behavior of prestressed geotextile reinforced sand bed supporting a loaded circular footing, They found that the effect of the prestressed geotextile configuration is evident in greater footing depths in comparison with unreinforced and reinforced sand beds without prestressed counterparts. Regarding loading with eccentricity, only few studies were performed experimentally to identify the critical values of rein= forcement layers for reinforcing the soil under strip and rectangular foundations. Sawa (2008) conducted a series of model tests on ‘eccentricaly loaded strip footing resting on geogrid reinforced sand, and found that the effect of reinforcement on bearing ca- pacity ratio is greater at lower values of eccentricity and greater relative densities. They figured out that the maximum improve- ment occurs at a depth ratio of u/B = 0.33 and hjB = 05 (Bis the ‘width of footing, and his the vertical distance between reinforce- ment layers). Purthermore, Patta et al. (2008) proposed an empitical rela- tionship from model loading tests on an eccentrcally loaded strip oundation in geogrid reinforced sand bed. Sadozlu et al. (2008) reported that the reinforcement increases ultimate loads in com- parison with unreinforced cases, and this contribution becomes ‘much lower with increasing load eccentricity. Al-Tslaty and ‘Tsay (2012) showed that, for the strip footings, the optimum values of u/B for the first geogrid layer vary from 0.35 to 0.45 ‘depending on the value of foad eccentricity ‘The experimental studies mentioned above focused on eccen- trically loaded strip footing resting on reinforced soil. and no attention was paid lo the behavior of eccentrically loaded circular foundation resting on reinforced sand. The present study focuses ‘on the effects of different parameters of geogrid layers, such as the depth of frst and second layers of reinforcement, numberof rein- forcement layers, on the bearing capacity, settlement and tit of the circular footing resting on sand bed under different load 2, Materials properties ‘To investigate the effect of eccentric loading ona circular footing resting on reinforced sand with geogrid layers, the properties of materials used in the tests ate described inthis section. 24, Sand In this study, the poorly graded medium sand dried by the oven is used, The particle size distribution curve, as shown in Fi. I is determined using the dry sieving method according tothe standard ‘of ASTM 422-90 (1990) on two sand samples. The sand is classi- fied as SP (poorly graded sand) in the unified soil classification system (USCS) with a coefficient of uniformity (C,) of 2.89, a coef- ficient of curvature (C.) of 105, and an effective size (Dio) of a Percent finer (4) Diameter (am) Fig 1. Pare size disbuion euve fr the sand (0.27 mm. In order to determine the specific gravity of soil particles, the maximum and minimum dry densities, the maximum and ‘minimum void ratios, three types of tests are cartied out and average values for the sand are computed to be 2.65, 1.64 glen”, 1144 g/cm?, 0.89 and 0.85, respectively. The angle of internal friction of dry sand with relative density of 60% is 39°, which is determined by the direct shear test 22, Geogrid In order to provide reinforcement material for the model tet, geogrid CEI21 with tensile strength of 768 kN/m is used. This 3 ba oa 1095228 as 09836 Please cite this article in press as: Badakhshan E, Noorzad A Load eccentricity effects on behavior of circular footings reinforced with geogrid sheets, Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (2015), http|}ax doi. org/10.1016)}jrmge.2015.08.006F odlhihan. A Norn Jol of Rack Mechs an Gatch! xgnerng (2015) 4A. Failure mechanism In all 45 tests, wo different modes of failure, ie, general shear failure and local shear failure, are demonstrated. In the case of general sheat failure, continuous failure surfaces develop between the edges of footing and the ground surface. As the pressure in- creases towards the ultimate Value, the soil around the edges of footing then gradually spreads downwards and outwards, Heaving of the ground surface accurs on both sides of footing, in this mode of failure, the load-settlement curve has a peak point where the ultimate bearing capacity is well defined. Inthe ease of local shear failure, there is a significant compression of the soil under the footing. The local shear failure s characterized by the occurrence of| relatively large settlements, slight heaving in surfaces and the fact that the ultimate bearing capacity isnot clearly defined. Regarding the load-settiement curves for the unreinforced and, reinforced tests, tis found thatthe local shear failure is the mode of failure for centrically loaded footing. For the sand with 60x relative density, this is an expectation failure mode (Vic. 1973). In eccentrically loaded footing. the failure mechanism is different in reinforced and unveinforced tests. In the tests without reinforce- ‘ment layers, by increasing the load eccentricity, the mode of failure remains constant (local shear failure), whereas for the tests with cinforcement layers, the mode of failure changes by increasing the load eccentricity to general shear failure. For the tests with load eccentricity outside the footing core the falure modes are quite the general shear failure, while for the load eccentricities inside the footing core and on the footing core boundary, itis dependent on the reinforcing conditions. For eccentricaly loaded tests in reinforced condition, the set- tlement continues causing strain softening to occur. Subsequently the sand behavior changes to strain hardening and thus by :ncreasing the settlement the corresponding load increases with an almost constant slope and geogrid layers seem to rupture. In other words, the strain hardening behavior could be attributed to the failure of geogrid sheets, because those have increased with the same slope. Strain softening is referred to as a behavior where the beating capacity reduces with continuous development of settle- _ment of footing (or strain of sand). Strain hardening is a process in Which foundation bed is permanently deformed in order to in- crease resistance to further deformation, 42. Optimum depth of reinforcement layers One of the important parameters in reinforced soil is the embedment depth of reinforcement layets from the soil surface. ‘The optimum spacing of reinforcement layers is studied experi- ‘mentally in this section, According to previous studies, several findings were reported for u and Hin centric loading condition. Researchers emphasized that there is critical values for u and ft beyond which further increase has not any effect on beating ca- pacity. Boushehrian and Hataf (2003), Mosallanezhad etal. (2008), and Latha and Somwanshi (2008) have shown through the tests on circular and square footings that the optimum depth of the frst reinforcement layer and the vertical spacing between reinforce- ‘ment layers that provide the maximum BCR vary from 0.2 to 0.5 for ‘ujD of ujB and from 0.3 to 06 for h/D or hjB, respectively. For centrically and eccentrically loaded footings. three different depths including 3 cm. 5 cm and 7 em from footing bottom are considered for the first and second layers of geogrid (in dimensionless condi- tion ujD = 0.25, 0.42 and 0.58 and hjD = 025, 0.42 and 0.58 are considered). The results for embedment depth ratios of the frst layer of reinforcement versus the RCR are shown in Fig 5. AS is obvious in this igure. the depth ratio of uD = 0.42 gives the highest BCR at all load eccentricities. For the second layer of reinforcement, L \ Fg. 5.Vartins of Bo with a ai forthe fist ayer of reinfexcement different depth ratios including hjD ~ 025, 042 and 0.58 ate considered to determine the optimum value of hiD by maintaining Uj = 0.42 as a constant. Results of hiD changing with the BCR are shown in Fig. 6 for both centric and eccentric loadings. It can be seen from this figure that, for depth ratio of hjD ~ 0.42, the ‘maximum BCR has occurred. Thus the optimum value for u and hin all tests can be considered to be about § cm (equal to u/D — hj D042}, Consequently for the tests with more than 2 layers of reinforcement, the embedment depth ratio is chosen as 0.42. 43. Effect of number of geogrid layers Several tests are cartied out with the same depth ratio (u/D ~ hj (0.42) to find out the effect of number of geogrid layers on BCR for centrically loaded circular footing and different load eccentric- ities (¢ = 0.75 cm, 15 cm, 2.25 em and 3 cm) The number af geogrid layers (N) is assumed from 1 to 4, The BCR versus N is plotted in Fig. 7, ft is revealed that the CR in centrically loaded footing Fi 6 Variations a BR ith ND at forthe sean lye of renercemen Fig. 7. Vacations of CR with for cent and excencloaings Please cite this article in press as: Badakiishan E, Noorzad A, Load eccentricity effects on behavior of circular footings reinforced with geogrid sheets, Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (2015), http:|/dxdoiorg|10.1016);jrmge2015.08.005