Reinforcing soils with geogrid material is an effective method to improve seismic performance of the soils. In this study, a series of finite element analyses were performed to determine the seismic performance of the medium rise building constructed on the reinforced sand. Two dimensional plain strain analysis was performed with PLAXIS 2D finite element program. Geogrids with varied number of layers were used as a reinforcing material. The effects of the depth to the first layer of the reinforcement layers and the number of reinforcement layers under earthquake loadings were investigated. Numerical models were subjected to the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake. The results of seismic analysis of unreinforced and reinforced soil models were compared. The numerical studies indicated a substantial improvement in terms of acceleration, shear stresses and settlement values due to the inclusion of geogrid layers. Furthermore, it has been found that the reinforcement depth has an important effect on the seismic performance of the building model.
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