Geography and Regional Planning

Geography and Regional Planning

Application of geogrid to improve and strengthen soil stability in desert and arid areas (case study, increasing the bearing capacity of foundation beds)

Authors
Younes Fakhari 1
Ahad Baghrazadeh Khalkhali 2
Ali Derakhshani 3
Javad Nazari Afshar 4
1 PhD Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, SR.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, SR.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran
4 Associate Professor,Department of Civil Engineering, Shahar-e-Qods Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran
10.22034/jgeoq.2026.595654.4522
Abstract
The soil type of desert and desert areas is mainly uniform, poorly grained sand with low density, and in areas where its formation is sedimentary, the presence of a weak thin layer deep in the ground is likely. In order to design a suitable foundation and safely transfer the load of the superstructure to the ground, in addition to determining the physical and strength characteristics of the soil and understanding the underlying geological condition of the soil layers, it is necessary to identify small inhomogeneities within the soil mass, such as weak thin layers, shear bands, and slip surfaces, which can have negative effects on the failure mechanism, ultimate bearing capacity of foundations, and safety factors of geotechnical systems. According to the results of previous work, the negative effect of a weak thin layer on the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation is evident, but very limited research has been conducted to improve the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation in the face of this inhomogeneity in the soil mass. In this study, the effect of using geosynthetic geogrid reinforcement to improve the bearing capacity of individual foundations on sand bed and to find the best reinforcement depth was investigated by constructing a physical soil-foundation model on a laboratory scale of 65×70×100 cm under static vertical load.
Keywords
Desert
arid regions
semi-arid regions
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