The Bearing Capacity of Compacted Clay Reinforced by Geotextile and Sand Cushion

The paper presents a series of laboratory tests for the California Bearing Ratio (CBR) for investigating the bearing capacity of soft clay reinforced by nonwoven geotextile and sand cushion. The variation of test conditions included levels of compaction energy and the thickness of sand layers. The result reveals that a thin sand cushion layer and reinforcement inclusion improved the CBR value of the reinforced riverbed clay significantly. The optimum thickness of sand cushion was 1.5 cm, which equivalent to the ratio between the depth of the first reinforcement layer and the diameter of the penetrated piston is equal unity. The CBR of the reinforced specimens could be increased as high as 25.5-34.8% at this optimum reinforcement ratio.