Advances in Reinforced Soil Structures

Soil reinforcement is a very useful technique to construct several cost-effective soil structures in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. The most commonly used reinforcement materials are galvanised steel strips, geosynthetics in the form of woven geotextiles, geogrids and geocomposites, and fibres from natural and waste products. In recent years, there have been advances in the area of soil reinforcement, especially in the utilization of the technique in field projects. The researchers have also been working to understand the behaviour of reinforced soil considering the field challenges of reinforced soil structures.

This edited volume contains contributions on advances in reinforced soil structures, mainly flexible pavements, footings, embankments, stone columns/piles, and slopes, as covered in the subject areas of geosynthetic engineering and fibre-reinforced soil engineering. The first paper by Ioannis N. Markou presents the details of sand-geotextile interaction based on interface tests with conventional and large-scale direct shear equipment. The second paper by Atef Ben Othmen and Mounir Bouassida examines the interface properties of geosynthetic reinforcement by carrying out inclined plane tests under low confinement adapted to landfill covers conditions. The third paper by J.N. Jha, S.K. Shukla, A.K. Choudhary, K.S. Gill1 and B.P. Verma deals with the triaxial compression behaviour of soil reinforced with steel and aluminium solid plates in horizontal layers. The fourth paper by M. Muthukumar and S.K. Shukla describes the swelling and shrinkage behaviour of expansive soil blended with lime and fibres. The fifth paper by S.G. Shah, A.C. Bhogayata and S.K. Shukla provides the test results of shear strength of cohesionless soil reinforced with metalized plastic waste. The sixth paper by Bouacha Nadjet compares the geotextile-reinforced and geogrid-reinforced flexible pavements based on numerical analyses.

The seventh paper by S. Kumar, C.H. Solanki, J.B. Patel, P.B. Sudevan and P.M. Chaudhary reports the results of laboratory model tests carried out on a square footing resting on prestressed geotextile reinforced sand. The eighth paper by Sanoop G and Satyajit Patel presents the numerical studies on ground improvement using geosynthetic reinforced sand layer. The ninth paper by ------------------- discusses the bearing capacity prediction of inclined loaded strip footing on reinforced sand by ANN. The tenth paper by Mohamad B.D. Elsawy presents the numerical simulation of an embankment, constructed on reinforced soft soil with conventional stone piles. The eleventh paper by N.O. Sheta  and R.P. Frizzi deals with the analysis, design, construction and monitoring of a geosynthetics-reinforced-earth pile-supported embankment serving as an access road. The twelfth paper by S. Banerjee, A. Adhikari, S. Chatterjee and D. Das provides the details of a case study on reinforced slope on soft soil for the approach of a major bridge. We do hope the researchers and the engineers may find the contributions in this volume very useful. This volume is part of the proceedings of the 1st GeoMEast International Congress and Exhibition on Sustainable Civil Infrastructures, Egypt 2017.