Soil-geosynthetic interaction - Influence of soil particle size and geosynthetic structure

This paper reports the results of pullout tests on five different geosynthetics embedded in two different granular soils. Soil and geosynthetic properties are described and soil-geosynthetic interaction behaviour is studied. Based on the results of pullout tests, the influence of soil particle size, geosynthetic structure, and the role of geogrid bearing members are discussed. The main conclusion is that the influence of soil particle size on soil-geosynthetic interaction is important, but its significance depends on several factors. With geogrids, the relative sizes of soil particles and geogrid apertures, and the thickness of the geogrid bearing members, determine soil-geogrid interface shear resistance. A marked increase in soil-geogrid interface shear resistance was observed when the soil contained a significant percentage of particles with sizes slightly greater than the thickness of the geogrid bearing members, but smaller than the geogrid apertures. Tests, on geogrids in which the bearing members had been cut, show a significant decrease in soil-geogrid interface shear resistance. The influence of soil particle size is less important for geotextiles and geocomposites. Although the structure of geotextiles and geocomposites has an effect on soil-reinforcement interface behaviour, mobilised pullout resistance is also affected by the axial tensile stiffness of geotextiles and geocomposites.