- The sandy soil with high gypsum content (usually referred to as gypseous soil) covers vast area in south, east, middle and west regions of Iraq, such soil possess a type of cohesive forces when attached with optimum amount of water, then compacted and allowed to cure, but losses its strength when flooded with water again. Much work on earth reinforcement was published which concentrate on the gain in bearing capacity in the reinforced layer using different types of cohesive or cohesion less soil and various types of reinforcement such as plastic, metal, grids, and synthetic textile. Little attention was paid to there enforce gypseous soil. The objective of this work is to study the interaction between such soil and reinforcement strips and determine the frictional stress between there enforcement strips and gypseous soil at its cured condition and at the asphalt stabilized condition through the pullout technique. This work presents a laboratory investigation on earth reinforced embankment model box. The box was filled with gypseous soil compacted in layers to a predetermined density. Aluminum and plastic reinforcement strips of variable geometric types were embedded at each layer. After compaction of each layer, and filling the box, the strips were subjected to pullout test to determine the frictional resistance between the soil and the strips at different spacing in the vertical and horizontal planes. The same procedure was repeated on another box after subjecting the embankment to curing for 10 days. A third embankment model was constructed using asphalt stabilized gypseous soil. Finally, the frictional behavior of the models was evaluated and the reinforcing strips behavior and capabilities were determined
