The principle compound behavior of geogrid reinforced soil is being investigated with large scale laboratory tests and corresponding numerical simulations. With a highly sophisticated testing device developed at RWTH Aachen University, biaxial compression tests of geogrid reinforced soil have been carried out under plane strain conditions with specimen dimensions up to 800 × 820 × 460 mm³ (H × W × D). In this paper, the load transfer between soil and geogrid is studied closely by varying the numbers of longitudinal and transverse tensile members of the geogrids. The main characteristic of geogrid reinforced soil, i.e. interlocking between soil and geogrid, can be visualized clearly.

To investigate a broader margin of the varied parameters, a finite element model has been set up using the software Abaqus®and is presented in this paper.