The paper is concerned with the physical modelling carried out in the geotechnical centrifuge operated at ISMES (Italy) in order to investigate the stability of a geogrid reinforced foundation on soft cohesive soil.
The foundation consists of a 3 m high bank of coarse granular material supporting a bre·akwater for oil tankers docking to be built at an Electrical Power Plant site of the Italian National Electricity Board (ENEL). The breakwater stability has been studied taking into account both the vertical and the horizontal loads acting on the breakwater structure. The results obtained show that the geogrid reinforcement yelds a significant enhancement of the ultimate limit loads acting on the breakwater. However the values are much more increased for the vertical loads than for the horizontal ones. On the opposite the reinforcement has a poor influence on the settlements and the rotations undergone by the breakwater under the service loads. Possible scale effects influencing the interface behaviour in the centrifuge tests have been taken into account and an appropriate design of the model geogrid has been adopted to try to minimise them.
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