Granular material being used at road and railway embankments are subjected to specific stress conditions with confining stresses much lower than stresses applied in vertical direction. To im-prove strength characteristics geosynthetic reinforcement is often applied. A series of large-scale triaxial tests on dense gravel, prismatic specimens with dimensions of 50 cm in height and 23 cm times 23 cm in cross-section was conducted to investigate the contribution of confining effect of reinforcement to the strength and particularly the impact upon the deformation properties of reinforced gravel from very small to large strain range. Two kinds of geosynthetics have been used as a reinforcement: geogrid and geo-composite. Deformations were measured locally using vertical and horizontal local deformation transduc-ers. Unsaturated specimen were tested in drained triaxial compression, using monotonic loading. Confin-ing pressure of 25 kPa has been applied by vacuum. Besides strength characteristics, particularly the stiff-ness properties were subject of research interests. Stiffness at different stress states was evaluated by using very small strain load cycles.
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