The task of estimating the bearing capacity of geosynthetic-reinforced foundations has been studied extensively over the last few decades. Researchers have investigated the effect of geosynthetic re-inforcement on the bearing capacity parameters that are included in the bearing capacity equation as well as on the ultimate bearing capacity of foundation soils. The analyses have considered different failure mechanisms of geosynthetic-reinforced foundation soils, such as wide-slab and deep-footing mechanisms. The former considers an equivalent footing width, and the latter takes an equivalent embedded depth for the geosynthetic-reinforced foundation system. The improvement of bearing capacity of geosynthetic-reinforced foundation soil has also been analysed by considering an improvement in the bearing capacity factors. For unreinforced soils, these factors are a function of the angle of internal friction of soil, ϕ. This paper therefore presents an analysis of the bearing capacity of a geosynthetic-reinforced foundation soil based on the use of improved bearing capacity factors. The bearing capacity ratio of a single-layer geo-synthetic-reinforced foundation soil observed in an experimental study (with and without wraparound ends) is used to calculate the equivalent angle of internal friction, ϕR, using Terzaghi’s equation. The re-sults reveal that by using a single-layer of geosynthetic in sand at the optimum burial depth, the increase in the value of the internal friction angle is about 13% for reinforced foundation soils without wraparound ends, and about 16% for reinforced foundation soils with wraparound ends.
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