Investigation of behavior of footings over rigid inclusion-reinforced soft soil: experimental and numerical approaches

The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of a footing lying directly upon a rigid inclusion-reinforced soft soil. Both experimental and numerical approaches were conducted. The studied cases include single rigid inclusion tests, a footing over nonrigid inclusion-reinforced soil, and a footing over rigid inclusion-reinforced soil. The vertical loading tests on single rigid inclusions and the footing over unreinforced soil showed the behavior of the multi-layered soil, thus allowing for the determination of soil parameters for the numerical analyses. The tests on the footing over reinforced soil were, furthermore, carried out with different loading cases (centered and eccentric vertical loads and horizontal loads). Special attention was paid to the influence of the complex loading cases on the footing over a reinforced soil system by the measurement of the inclusion head pressure, the vertical and lateral footing settlements, and the lateral inclusion displacements. The measured pressure on the inclusion seemed to increase linearly with the vertical loading on the footing. A good agreement between the numerical analysis results and measurement data has been found for the loading phases while underprediction appears for a few loading cycles, probably due to the simplified soil constitutive model adopted.