Reinforcement with geosynthetics is one of the common procedures for improving the bearing capacity of a footing placed near a sand slope. Utilizing geosynthetics in soil results in increasing the bearing capacity and decreasing the settlement ratio. In this study, braid elements as a state-of-art kind of geosynthetics has been used for reinforcement. The purposes of this dissertation are the evaluation of the effect of the different parameters of the soil and braid element on the bearing capacity of the footings adjacent reinforced sand slopes. The parameter which are investigated i thi study are the effect of the depth of the first reinforcement layer, the vertical distance between the reinforcement layers, number of reinforcement layers, the distance between the footing and the crest of the slope, the relative density of the sand, the width of the footing, the diameter size of the braid elements, the layout of the braid elements in depth and the width of the box and the effect of the type and the shape of the reinforcement elements. The model tests are built in a box with the dimensions of 40×70×150 cm. According to the results of the tests, utilizing a single layer of braid elements in an adroit distance from the bottom of the footing, increases the bearing capacity 1.95 times. Also, increasing in the number and decreasing the vertical distance between the braid layers cause an increase in the bearing capacity and decrease in the settlement ratio. Besides, with increase in the distance betwee the footing and the crest of the slope, the bearing capacity and the settlement ratio for both reinforced and unreinforced sand slopes will increase and decrease, respectively. The increase in the bearing capacity and decrease in the settlement ratio are also observed with increase in the relative density. Increase in the width of the footing from 6cm to 8cm and then from 8cm to 10cm cause variations in BCR from 1.84 to 3.55 and then decrease to 3.5, in the order given. Increase in the diameter size of the braid elements for the same amount of materials for covering the width of the box in a specific length, results increase in the amounts of the BCR. More number of braid elements in lesser number of reinforcement layers in depth results better improvement in the bearing capacity. For the plannar shape of the braid and geogrid elements, the bearing capacity experience a significant decrease rather than tubular shapes of the reinforcements. Key words Braid, reinforced sand slope, bearing capacity, settlement ratio
