ARTICLE IN PRESS

Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 201209

www.elsevier.com/locate/geotexmem

Triaxial tests of sand reinforced with 3D inclusions

M.X. Zhanga,, A.A. Javadib, X. Mina
a

Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai University, 149 Yanchang Road, Shanghai 200072, P R China
Department of Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon EX4 4QF, UK

Received 3 October 2005; received in revised form 27 February 2006; accepted 4 March 2006
Available online 9 May 2006

Abstract
In conventional reinforced soils, the reinforcements are often laid horizontally in the soil. In this paper, a new concept of soil
reinforced with three-dimensional (3D) reinforcing elements is proposed. In the proposed 3D reinforced soil, besides conventional
horizontal reinforcements, some vertical and 3D reinforcing elements are also placed in the soil. A comprehensive set of triaxial tests was
carried out on sand reinforced with 3D reinforcements (made of galvanized iron sheet and hard plastic sheet). The behavior of sand
reinforced with different 3D reinforcing congurations is studied in terms of stressstrain relationship and shear strength of the soil.
Comparison is made between stressstrain relationship and shear strength of the soil reinforced with horizontal reinforcement and with
3D reinforcing elements. The inuences of the height of vertical reinforcing elements, the Youngs modulus of reinforcement materials
and conning pressure on strength of reinforced sand are discussed. The experimental results show that 3D reinforcement not only gives
an apparent cohesion to the soil (sand), but it also increases the angle of internal friction signicantly, especially with double-sided 3D
reinforcing elements. Different congurations of 3D reinforcing elements are discussed and compared.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Three-dimensional (3D) reinforcing element; Vertical reinforcement; Reinforced soil; Triaxial test; Stressstrain relationship; Strength

1. Introduction
Due to its cost-saving, ease of construction and ability to
improve the visual appearance, reinforced soil has been
widely used in geotechnical engineering applications such
as construction of road and railway embankments,
stabilization of slopes, improvement of soft ground, and
so on. Numerous papers have examined the reinforcement
of soil (e.g. Iizuka et al., 2004; Park and Tan, 2005;
Yetimoglu et al., 2005; Patra et al., 2005; Varuso et al.,
2005). Current research works mainly emphasize on the
strength, mechanism and bearing capacity of the reinforced
soil (Ingold, 1983; Haeri et al., 2000; Michalowski, 2004).
Besides the studies on strength properties and mechanism
of the reinforced soil, the inuence of the types of
reinforcement materials and the shape and arrangement

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 56331972; fax: +86 21 56331971.

E-mail addresses: mxzhang@staff.shu.edu.cn (M.X. Zhang),

a.a.javadi@exeter.ac.uk (A.A. Javadi).
0266-1144/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geotexmem.2006.03.004

of reinforcement on the strength of reinforced soil has been

investigated. Smith and Brigilson (1979) and Xiong and
Zhang (1992) used model tests to study the strength and
bearing capacity of earth retaining walls reinforced with
inclined reinforcements. Yang and Wang (1999) proposed
a new reinforced soil structure composed of horizontal
reinforced concrete grids. Rajagopal et al. (1999) carried
out a large number of triaxial compression tests on
granular soil encased in single and multiple geocells to
study the inuence of geocell connement on the strength
and stiffness behavior of granular soils. Chen and He
(2000) carried out eld measurements to study tensile
stresses, settlement, earth pressure and horizontal displacements on the facing of a retaining wall with wedgereinforcements. Lei (2001) analyzed the strength characteristics of a reinforced soil structure with reinforced concrete
blocks placed in series as reinforcements. Xie (2003)
presented a new type of reinforcement, reinforcing ring,
whose mechanical function is to turn lateral earth pressure
to stress within the reinforcing ring. Lawton et al.
(1993) presented a method for reinforcing soils using

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202

multioriented geosynthetics inclusions within or upon

compacted soils. They carried out a series of CBR, triaxial
and permeability tests and compared the effectiveness of
the multioriented elements with bers. The contributions
related to new arrangements of reinforcement have played
an active role in the development of reinforced soil
technology. Meanwhile, a wide literature on ber-reinforced soils was reported. Gray and Ohashi (1983) studied
the behavior of a dry sand reinforced with different types
of bers, including natural and synthetic as well as metal
bers, through series of direct shear tests. Arenicz and
Choudhury (1988) carried out a series of laboratory
investigation into study of effects of different types of
random reinforcements on soil strength and in particular,
on the performance of the reinforced earth model walls. A
study was undertaken to investigate the shear strength of
sands reinforced with randomly distributed discrete bers
by direct shear tests (Yetimoglu and Salbas, 2003). Fourteen series of drained triaxial tests were performed and the
results indicated that peak shear strength and initial
stiffness of the sand were not affected signicantly by the
ber reinforcement. A model for prediction of the failure
stress in triaxial compression was developed by Michalowski and Cermak (2003).
In this paper, a new concept of soil reinforcement with
specic types of three-dimensional (3D) reinforcing elements is proposed. A fundamental difference between the
3D reinforcing elements presented in this paper and other
forms of 3D inclusions as well as ber-reinforced soil is
that in the presented 3D reinforced soil, the soil enclosed
within the 3D reinforcing elements will provide passive
resistance against shearing that will increase the strength
and stability of the reinforced soil. The results from a
comprehensive set of experiments on sand reinforced with
3D reinforcing elements are presented and discussed. The
experimental program included 48 series of triaxial tests on
sand reinforced with a single-layer 3D reinforcing element,
where galvanized iron sheet and hard plastic sheet were

used for reinforcement. The stressstrain behavior and

shear strength of sand reinforced with different 3D
reinforcing elements are studied. Comparison is made
between stressstrain relationship and shear strength of the
soil reinforced with horizontal reinforcements and with 3D
inclusions. The inuences of the height of vertical
reinforcements, stiffness of reinforcement materials and
conning pressure on strength of reinforced sand are
discussed. Different congurations of 3D inclusions are
discussed and compared.

2. Concept and types of soils reinforced with 3D

reinforcements
In soils reinforced with 3D reinforcements, besides
conventional horizontal inclusions, some vertical and 3D
reinforcing elements are also laid in the soil. Typical soil
structures reinforced with 3D reinforcing elements for in
situ applications are shown in Fig. 1. Within the structures,
3D inclusions composed of conventional horizontal
reinforcing stripes and vertical reinforcing elements
(rectangular or triangular in shape) are laid. The proposed
3D reinforcing elements would be placed horizontally
for in situ applications (see Fig. 1). The typical congurations of 3D reinforcing elements can be divided into three
cases:
(1) Vertical and 3D reinforcing elements are laid upon
conventional horizontal reinforcements in the soil; these
are typically rectangular, triangular or semispherical in
shape (Figs. 2ac).
(2) Vertical and 3D reinforcements are laid in soil
without any horizontal reinforcements; these are spherical
and ring shape reinforcements. Geocell is one of the
vertical reinforcement types. These vertical and 3D
reinforcements can be connected to each other directly or
by a series of rigid reinforcements, as shown in Fig. 2d.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 1. Typical 3D reinforced soil structures: (a) horizontal and single-vertical reinforced; (b) horizontal and double-vertical reinforced; (c) horizontal and
singletriangular reinforced and (d) horizontalvertical joint frame reinforced.

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203

Fig. 2. Typical 3D reinforcing elements.

h/2

h/2

(3) 3D reinforcements can be performed with joint frame

structure composed of horizontal and vertical reinforcing
elements, as shown in Figs. 2e and f.
3. Experimental program

h/2

h/2

A set of triaxial compression tests was performed to

study the effects of various parameters, including reinforcement conguration (horizontal, 3D, single-sided or
double-sided reinforcements), reinforcement materials
and conning pressures, on the behavior of unreinforced
sand, sand with horizontal reinforcement and sand
reinforced with 3D reinforcements. A summary of these
test parameters is as follows:

4cm
d

Different congurations of 3D reinforcements as shown

in Fig. 3, and triaxial tests including seven cases as
summarized in Table 1.
Two types of materials for reinforcements: galvanized
iron sheet and hard plastic sheet.
Four conning pressures (50, 100, 150 and 200 kPa).

4cm
d

3.1. Test materials

(a)

All the specimens were prepared in dry condition within

a split cylinder mould.

(b)

Fig. 3. Conguration of 3D reinforcing elements: (a) single-sided and (b)

double-sided.

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Table 1
Experimental cases of 3D reinforced sand
Case

Horizontal
reinforcement

Vertical reinforcement
Style

0
1a,b

One-layer

2a,b
3a,b
4a,b
5a
6a
7a

One-layer
One-layer
One-layer
One-layer
One-layer
One-layer

Single-side
Single-side
Single-side
Double-side
Double-side
Double-side

Table 2
Physical properties of sand
Note

Height
DH (cm)
Unreinforced
Horizontal
reinforced
3D reinforced
3D reinforced
3D reinforced
3D reinforced
3D reinforced
3D reinforced

1
2
3
21
22
23

Reinforcements with galvanized iron sheet.

Reinforcements with hard plastic sheet.

100
90
Percent finer(%)

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0.01

0.1

10

Particle size(mm)
Fig. 4. Grain size distribution curve.

3.1.1. Sand
Uniform, clean, quartz beach sand from shores of Fujian
Province in China was used. The particle size distribution
curve for the sand is shown in Fig. 4. It is seen that the
particle sizes of the sand mainly ranged between
0.251 mm.The sand has a relatively uniform grain-size
distribution with median grain size (D50) of 0.54 mm and
coefcients of uniformity (Cu) and curvature (Cc) of 2.30
and 1.01, respectively. The physical properties of the sand
are presented in Table 2.
3.1.2. Reinforcements
The reinforcements used in the tests are galvanized iron
sheet with a thickness of 0.12 mm and hard plastic sheet
with a thickness of 1.0 mm.The friction coefcients between
sand and reinforcements (galvanized iron sheet and hard
plastic sheet), obtained from direct shear tests, are 0.47 and
0.55, respectively.
3.2. Test equipment and procedure
A standard medium-sized triaxial shear apparatus was
used for testing specimens of unreinforced sand and sand

Unit weight
g (kN/m3)

Moisture content
w (%)

Specic gravity of solids

Gs

Void ratio
e

16.79

0.15

2.64

0.586

reinforced with 3D and horizontal inclusions. The specimens had a diameter of 61.8 mm and a height of 135 mm.
The experimental data were collected by an automatic
(TSW-3) data collection system. All dry specimens were
subjected to simply triaxial compression. For all the tests, a
strain rate of 0.5% per minute was adopted. Most of the
tests were continued up to a maximum axial strain of 15%.
Corrections such as for the membrane effect and changes in
the cross-sectional area of the sample were considered and
implemented in the analysis of the experimental results.
A standard procedure was adopted for preparing dry
cohesionless samples and testing with triaxial apparatus as
recommended by Bishop and Henkel (1969) and Head
(1982). The samples were compacted in four layers through
tamping with a tamper consisting of a circular disk
attached to a steel rod. The disk had a diameter slightly
less than the mould. All samples were carefully prepared to
maintain a relative density of 79.8%. After compacting and
leveling each layer of sand, 3D reinforcement was placed
in the specimen according to the congurations of 3D
inclusions (see Fig. 3).
The aim of this study was to investigate the behavior of
reinforced sand with different congurations of 3D
inclusions. This study focuses on the inuences of vertical
reinforcing elements on strength and deformation of
reinforced sand. In triaxial tests, the reinforcing elements
are often placed with axial symmetry. The reinforcement
was placed in the middle of the height of the specimen. The
3D inclusions used in this study were composed of ringshape vertical reinforcing elements with different heights
and horizontal inclusions. The vertical reinforcing elements
were xed upon the horizontal ones by means of bond.
4. Test results and discussions
4.1. Stressstrain curves
Typical stressstrain curves for the sand reinforced with
3D reinforcements are presented in Figs. 5af. These
gures indicate that reinforcing sand with the 3D
reinforcements increases the yield stress and shear strength
of the soil considerably, compared with horizontally
reinforced and unreinforced soil. The gures also show
that the maximum deviator stress increases with increasing
the height of vertical reinforcements. For the soils
reinforced with the same reinforcement conguration, the
deviator stress increases with increasing conning pressure.
The peaks of the stressstrain curves for most specimens
occur at an approximate axial strain of 2.53%.

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M.X. Zhang et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 201209

800

205

300

700

250

1 - 3 (kPa)

1 - 3 (kPa)

600
500
400
300

150
100

200

Unreinforced
Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=21 cm
3D reinforced,H=22 cm
3D reinforced,H=23 cm

100

Unreinforced
Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=1 cm
3D reinforced,H=2 cm
3D reinforced,H=3 cm

50

0
0

(a)

6
a (%)

10

12

6
a (%)

10

12

6
a (%)

10

12

10

12

(b)

1200

700

1000

600
500

800
1 - 3 (kPa)

1 - 3 (kPa)

200

600
400

400
300
200

50 kPa
100 kPa
150 kPa
200 kPa

200

0
0

(c)

6
a (%)

10

12

(d)

1400

800

1200

700
600
1 - 3 (kPa)

1000
1 - 3 (kPa)

50 kPa
100 kPa
150 kPa
200 kPa

100

800
600
400

400
300
200

50 kPa
100 kPa
150 kPa
200 kPa

200

500

50 kPa
100 kPa
150 kPa
200 kPa

100
0

0
0
(e)

6
a (%)

10

12
(f)

6
a (%)

Fig. 5. Deviator stress versus axial strain under different experimental cases: (a) reinforced on double-sided with galvanized iron sheet (s3 100 kPa); (b)
reinforced on single-sided with hard plastic sheet (s3 50 kPa); (c) 2 cm high double-sided reinforcements with galvanized iron sheet; (d) 2 cm high singlesided reinforcements with hard plastic sheet; (e) 3 cm high double-sided reinforcements with galvanized iron sheet; (f) 3 cm high single-sided reinforcements
with hard plastic sheet.

4.2. Strength properties

The shear strength parameters (C and j) of the
reinforced sand with different congurations of 3D

inclusions calculated from the experimental results, are

shown in Table 3. The pq diagrams of specimens for the
unreinforced sand and sand reinforced with different
congurations of 3D and horizontal inclusions are

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206

Table 3
Strength parameters of 3D reinforced sand from triaxial tests
Case

Vertical reinforcement

0
1b
2b
3b
4b
1c
2c
3c
4c
5b
6b
7b

Style

Height DH (cm)

Single-side
Single-side
Single-side

Single-side
Single-side
Single-side
Double-side
Double-side
Double-side

0
1
2
3
0
1
2
3
21
22
23

c (kPa)

j (deg)

Dcd (kPa)

Dje (deg)

12.364
21.340
25.421
22.286
23.235
18.471
17.243
21.691
22.212
39.048
44.800
60.672

32.215
33.353
33.525
35.669
36.107
33.223
34.653
35.690
36.214
40.489
43.765
43.836

8.976
13.057
9.922
10.871
6.107
4.879
9.327
9.848
26.684
32.436
48.308

1.138
1.310
3.454
3.892
1.008
2.438
3.475
3.999
8.274
11.550
11.621

Unreinforced.
Reinforced with galvanized iron sheet.
c
Reinforced with hard plastic sheet.
d
Increase in apparent cohesion due to reinforcing as compared with unreinforced sand.
e
Increase in angle of friction due to reinforcing as compared with unreinforced sand.
b

1400
Unreinforced
Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=1cm
3D reinforced,H=2cm
3D reinforced,H=3cm
3D reinforced,H=21cm
3D reinforced,H=22cm
3D reinforced,H=23cm

1200

q (kPa)

1000
800
600
400
200
0

100

200

(a)

300
400
p (kPa)

500

600

700

800
Unreinforced
Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=1cm
3D reinforced,H=2cm
3D reinforced,H=3cm

700
600

q (kPa)

500
400
300
200
100

0
(b)

50

100

150

200 250
p (kPa)

300

350

400

450

Fig. 6. pq diagram under different experimental cases: (a) reinforced with

galvanized iron sheet and (b) reinforced with hard plastic sheet.

similar angle of internal friction and the critical state line is

basically parallel to that of the unreinforced soil (see Fig. 6).
(2) For sand reinforced with single-sided 3D inclusions,
an apparent cohesion is added and the angle of internal
friction is increased. As compared with unreinforced sand,
the increments of the apparent cohesion and the angle of
internal friction for the sand reinforced with 3D reinforcements are 9.013.1 kPa and 1.33.91, respectively for the
cases of reinforcement with galvanized iron sheet, and
4.99.8 kPa and 2.44.01, respectively for the cases of
reinforcement with hard plastic sheet. Meanwhile, the slope
of the critical state line in the p:q plane increases with
increasing the vertical reinforcement height.
(3) For sand reinforced with double-sided 3D inclusions,
both apparent cohesion and angle of internal friction have
increased remarkably. As compared with unreinforced
sand, the apparent cohesion and the angle of internal
friction of the sand reinforced with 3D inclusions increased
by 26.748.3 kPa and 8.311.61 for the cases of reinforcement with galvanized iron sheet.
(4) It can be seen from Table 3 that the apparent
cohesion for the sand reinforced with double-sided 3D
inclusions (2  1 cm high) was 75.2% greater than that of
single-sided 3D inclusions (2 cm high), and the angle of
internal friction for the former was 13.5% greater than that
of the latter. From this observation, it was found that with
the same height of vertical reinforcing elements, the shear
strength of sand reinforced with double-sided 3D inclusions is much greater than that with single-sided inclusions.
4.3. Reinforcing effects

illustrated in Fig. 6. Table 3 and Fig. 6 (in conjunction with

Fig. 5) indicate that:
(1) Reinforced sand with conventional horizontal inclusions gives an apparent cohesion to sand while displaying a

From the results of the triaxial tests on the sand

reinforced with 3D inclusions, deviator stresses at failure
under different experimental cases are presented in Fig. 7.

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In order to evaluate the effects of the 3D inclusions on

strength of the reinforced sand, a strength ratio parameter,
R, is introduced which is dened as

700
600

1 - 3 (kPa)

500

s1  s3 R
f
,
s1  s3 f

400

where s1  s3 R
f is deviator stress of sand reinforced with
3D reinforcements at failure and s1  s3 f is deviator
stress of unreinforced sand at failure.
According to this denition, strength ratios under
different experimental cases can be calculated, as shown
in Fig. 8. Figs. 7 and 8 indicate that:
(1) For sand reinforced with 3D inclusions, the greater the
height of the vertical reinforcements, the greater is the increase
in shear strength in comparison with unreinforced sand.
(2) With the same height of vertical reinforcements and
for the same reinforcement material, the strength ratio of
reinforced sand will generally be decreased with the
increase of conning pressure. So the 3D reinforcements

300
200

3=50kPa
3=100kPa
3=150kPa
3=200kPa

100
0

0.5

(a)

1.5
H (cm)

2.5

1400
3=50kPa
3=100kPa
3=150kPa
3=200kPa

1200

3.5

1000
800

Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=1cm
3D reinforced,H=2cm
3D reinforced,H=3cm
3D reinforced,H=21cm
3D reinforced,H=22cm
3D reinforced,H=23cm

600
Strength ratio

1 - 3 (kPa)

207

400
200
0

0.5

(b)

1.5
H (cm)

2.5

2.5

1.5

800
1

700

50

100

150

200

250

3(kPa)

(a)

600
Horizontal reinforced
3D reinforced,H=1cm
3D reinforced,H=2cm
3D reinforced,H=3cm

400
300
200

3=50kPa
3=100kPa
3=150kPa
3=200kPa

100
0
(c)

Strength ratio

1 - 3 (kPa)

1.6

500

0.5

1.5
H (cm)

2.5

1.4

1.2

Fig. 7. Deviator stresses at failure versus heights of vertical reinforcements: (a) reinforced on single-sided with galvanized iron sheet; (b)
reinforced on double-sided with galvanized iron sheet and (c) reinforced
on single-sided with hard plastic sheet.

1
(b)

50

100
3(kPa)

150

200

250

Fig. 8. Strength ratios versus conning pressures: (a) reinforced with

galvanized iron sheet and (b) reinforced on single-sided with hard plastic
sheet.

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are also more effective for specimens at low conning

pressures, as is the case for the conventional horizontal
reinforcements (see Fig. 8).
(3) By comparing the strength ratios of sand reinforced
with 1 cm high vertical reinforcements on both sides with
that of 2 cm high vertical reinforcements on one side only,
(both at the same conning pressure), it is realized that the
strength ratio of the former is considerably greater than the
latter. This is because of the unsymmetrical distribution of
reinforcing elements about the horizontal reinforcing plane
for the latter case. This is why, with the same vertical height
of the total reinforcements, the reinforcing effect of doublesided reinforcement is much greater than that of single-sided
reinforcement. In the case of the single-sided reinforcement,
the two parts of the soil sample are separated by the
horizontal reinforcing plane; the upper (vertically reinforced) part belongs to the area of 3D reinforcement, while
the lower part is horizontally reinforced and its behavior is
close to that of the conventional horizontally reinforced soil.
When the whole specimen approaches failure, the sand in
the area below the horizontal reinforcement will fail earlier
than that in the 3D reinforced area above the horizontal
reinforcing plane.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a new concept of soil reinforced with threedimensional reinforcing elements has been presented. A
comprehensive set of triaxial tests was carried out on
samples of dry sand unreinforced, reinforced with horizontal reinforcement and reinforced with 3D reinforcing
elements, in order to study the behavior of reinforced sand
under different congurations of 3D inclusions. The
following conclusions can be drawn from the results of
this study:
(1) The results of triaxial tests on sand reinforced with
conventional horizontal reinforcements show that the
reinforced sand exhibits a similar angle of internal friction
to that of unreinforced sand while displaying a signicant
increase in apparent cohesion. The experimental results in
this paper show that 3D reinforcement not only gives an
apparent cohesion to the sand, it also increases the angle of
internal friction signicantly, especially with double-sided
3D reinforcements.
(2) The strength of sand reinforced with 3D inclusions
increases with increasing height of the vertical reinforcements.
(3) For samples with the same height of vertical
reinforcement, double-sided vertical reinforcements will
result in greater increase in strength of reinforced sand than
single-sided ones.
(4) The sand reinforced with 3D inclusions works more
effectively under lower conning pressure.
As the triaxial specimens are too small to represent
physical modeling of a reasonable prototype, the results
obtained from these tests may not be representative of
in situ performance and were used in the context of the

comparative study. Additional research on larger scale tests

would be required to extend the results to in situ
conditions. Study of behavior of soils reinforced with 3D
inclusions in a larger scale is the subject of upcoming
research by the authors.
Acknowledgements
The nancial assistances from the Natural Science
Foundation of Shanghai, China under Grant no.
03ZR14036 and the Scientic Research Foundation for
the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education
Ministry (SRF for ROCS, SEM) under Grant no. 200314
are herein much acknowledged.
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