Fundamental concepts of soil reinforcement — an overview

In most of the practical applications, reinforced soils are obtained by incorporating continuous reinforcement inclusions (for example, strip, bar, sheet, mat or net) within a soil mass in a definite pattern. The reinforcing mechanisms for such reinforced soils have been explained in different forms in the literature since the first modern form of soil reinforcement was developed by Henry Vidal in 1966. In the past three decades, randomly distributed fiber-reinforced soil mechanisms have also been studied extensively suggesting a new emerging market for them in geotechnical engineering applications. It is timely to critically review the basic concepts of soil reinforcement, considering different types of reinforcement inclusions. In this review, reinforced soils are classified into two main groups: systematically reinforced soil, and randomly distributed fiberreinforced soil. It is emphasized that a single reinforcing mechanism cannot be used to explain the behavior of all reinforced soils, in fact, it is highly dependent on the type of reinforcement inclusions; however, the basic concept of soil reinforcement remains the same for all types of reinforcement.