Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Load Carrying Capacity of Ring Footing on Sand Reinforced with Geonet

Ring footings are usually used for symmetrical buildings such as bridge piers, transmission towers, water storage tanks, chimneys, television antennas, silos. Compared with other footings less studies are done related to ring footings. The use of ring footing decrease the amount of material, less self weight and is more economical. This paper deals with experimental and numerical investigation of load carrying capacity of ring footing resting on geonet reinforced sand. Model ring were made and test were done on both reinforced and unreinforced sand. The parameters considered in the study are depth and number of layers of geonet. Both experimental and numerical study showed that the inclusion of geonet in sand causes significant increase in the load carrying capacity. The increase in load carrying capacity and reduction in settlement depends upon the depth and the number of layers of reinforcement. The numerical analysis is done in Plaxis3D.