The technique of reinforcing soil is one of the most popular and effective in improving the soil in the field of geotechnical engineering. Most of the studies carried out so far on reinfoced soil foundation focuses only on the improvement in the bearing capacity of the soil due to the presence of reinforcement. But the determination of stress distribution in reinforced soil is a very important problem in foundation engineering. It is also essential to examine the changes in the pressure bulb due to the presence of reinforcement. This research is performed to study the effect of reinforcement in the stress distribution using PLAXIS analysis. Changes in the width and depth of vertical stress and shear stress bulb due to reinforcement is established by obtaining a tentative pressure bulb for both reinforced and unreinforced case from numerical analysis. Pressure cells were used to measure the stress developed at various depth along the center of the footing. The vertical stress coefficient obtained from experiment, numerical analysis and theory (Boussinesq equation) is compared.
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