Bearing capacity of square footing on pond ash reinforced with jute-geotextile

At present an enormous amount of pond ash is being produced by thermal power plants throughout the world. Storage of pond ash requires vast land area and disposal of ash becomes problematic and also it creates environmental hazards. To mitigate these problems, pond ash has been used in the low-lying areas as structural fills for developing residential and industrial sites. To enhance the bearing capacity of pond ash, it may be reinforced with jute-geotextile, a textile made from jute (natural fibre) for the purpose. In the present study an attempt has been made to study the bearing capacity of square footing on pond ash reinforced with jute-geotextile. The effects of different parameters like number of layers (N) of reinforcement, the depth of the upper most layer of reinforcement from the base of the footing (u), friction ratio (f), i.e. the ratio of the pond ash jute-geotextile interface friction angle (ψ) to the direct shear friction angle of pond ash (φd) and jute-geotextile sheet length (Ls) on bearing capacity of square footing (qrs) at any settlement resting on pond ash reinforced with jute-geotextile are discussed. A non-linear power model has been developed to estimate qrs based on 1399 experimental data.