BEARING CAPACITY OF SAND REINFORCED WITH COIR ROPE. REINFORCED SOIL AND GEOTEXTILES, PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOTEXTILES CONFERENCE HELD AT THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, BOMBAY, INDIA, DECEMBER 8-9, 1988

The practice of using reinforced earth for appropriate geotechnical engineering projects has now been well established. It is therefore desirable to use locally and cheaply available alternatives as reinforcements in place of metallic wires, strips and grids. In this study the use of coir rope reinforcements with bamboo strip anchorages has been examined. Factors which influence the performance of soil reinforced with coir ropes are examined by conducting model tests. The parameters considered are the horizontal spacing, number of reinforcement layers, region of confinement and the volume of reinforcement. Depending on the arrangement of reinforcement the ultimate bearing capacity can be increased by a factor of about 2.5. The most significant factor in increasing the bearing capacity is the vertical spacing of reinforcement layers. The "mesh" pattern of reinforcement is more effective than unidirectional alignment. Reinforcement extending beyond the area of influence of the load gives very limited support and for a specific load, the settlement is less in reinforced sand. For the covering abstract of the conference, see IRRD 836241. (Author/TRRL)