Behavior of geocell reinforced sandy soils under static load

18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Lisbon, Portekiz, 26 - 30 Ağustos 2024, ss.2654-2657

Geocell is a three-dimensional cellular geosynthetic product to provide all-around confinement by the

interaction of infill soil, cell walls and cell geometry. This study comprises of laboratory model tests of geocell-reinforced

sandy soil with different dimensions of geocells to evaluate the amount of the contributions of the geocells with regards to

height of the cell, width of the cell and loading location. In addition, the load is applied at the center of the cell and at the

intersection of polymer boundaries of geocells. Tests are conducted in a tank with dimensions of 1 m width, 1 m length and

various heights depending on geocell height, where static loading is applied via a steel plate on the sand surface. The results

are presented in terms of pressure-settlement plots. It is observed that for a predetermined settlement value, presence of the

geocells increased the bearing capacity of the footing by 38% to 73% compared to unreinforced cases and reduced the

settlements under a given pressure. Bearing capacity increased with increasing geocell height independently from geocell

width. Decreasing of geocell width increased the bearing capacity of the footing independently from geocell height.