Quantification of shear strength of soils is often done using small scale tests, results of which are influenced by the sample size and boundary effects. In the present study, realistic estimate of the shear strength of unreinforced and geotextile reinforced sand with varying quantity of reinforcement is presented through large scale triaxial tests and the effect of sample size on the strength is studied through triaxial tests on reinforced soil specimens of different sizes. Triaxial specimens were of diameter 38, 50, 70 and 300 mm with height to diameter ratio of 2 in the tests. Specimens were reinforced with layers of woven geotex-tile.From the experimental results it was observed that the reinforced specimens sustained more loads than unreinforced specimens, at all the strain levels. While the specimen size did not show considerable effect on the behavior of unreinforced sand, the effects are more pronounced in case of reinforced sand specimens. Results showed that the beneficial effect increased with increase in the quantity of reinforcement. However, the maximum strength improvement observed in 300 mm specimens is only about twice with the inclusion of six layers of geotextiles, whereas it was about four times for 38 mm test specimens. This study brought out the limitations of small scale testing on reinforced sand.
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