Abstract
This paper presents a numerical investigation of the load–settlement behaviour of a geosynthetic-reinforced tailings foundation comprised of gold tailings, subjected to the weight of a tailings dam embankment. The study considered varying conditions, including the horizontal and vertical components of the wraparound reinforcement, reinforcement burial depth, and shear strength parameters of the foundation material. A particular focus of this study is to investigate the effect of reinforcement wraparound ends on the settlement behaviour of the foundation using commercially available finite element (FE) software. The reinforcement is a single-layer biaxial woven geotextile, with and without wraparound ends, at varying depths from the base of the dam embankment. The wrapped models possessed the most improved behaviour compared to those without wraparound ends. By increasing the angle of internal friction from 30° to 35° while keeping cohesion constant, the settlement ratio improved by as much as 11% for the model with wraparound ends.
Keywords
geosynthetic reinforcement, settlement ratio, tailings, wraparound technique
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
E-ISSN
19397879
ISSN
19386362
Publication Title
International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Engineering
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Otieno, F., & Shukla, S. K. (2026). Load-settlement behaviour of tailings dam foundation strengthened using the wraparound geosynthetic reinforcement technique. International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, 20(10), 1126–1143. https://doi.org/10.1080/19386362.2026.2718159