Behavior Investigation of Reinforced and Unreinforced Sand below Strip Foundation using PIV

In this research، failure mechanism، soil deformation and effect of reinforcement below a strip foundation were studied using physical modeling and PIV method. For this purpose، a comprehensive set of tests were undertaken on dense and loose sands and different geosynthetic materials such as geotextile and geogrid for soil reinforcing. In each step of loading، digital image of deformed soil was captured and image processing was applied with GeoPIV software. The experimental results showed that using of geogrid and geotextile leading to increase bearing capacity considerably، reduce settlement and change the failure mechanism of sand. The test results showed also that geogrid has an effective performance in comparison with geotextile in sand at the range of small strains.