Bearing Capacity Improvement of Sand using Geocell Reinforcement by Abhinandan Jaswal
Abstract
There are various methods to increase the engineering properties of soil using different types of reinforcements. Over the last thirty years, the favourable effect of using reinforcements to increase the bearing capacity of sand is clearly shown by several investigators. In this study, the laboratory model tests are conducted on a strip footing resting on a sand bed which is reinforced with a geocell mattress. The purpose of present study is to determine the improvement in bearing capacity of soil by reinforcing it with geocell mattress. So the effect of various parameters such as height (h/B) and variation of depth (u/B) of the geocell mattress was investigated. The depth of geocell mattress is kept 0.5Β, 0.75Β, 1.0Β and 1.25B and it is observed that the gain in load carrying capacity starts reducing beyond 0.5B and the maximum increase of 388% is observed at a 0.5B depth of geocell layer. There is sufficient increase in the bearing carrying capacity by the using of geocells and the optimum depth of geocell layer was found to be 0.5B below the footing. It was also observed that the increase in height of geocells affects the load carrying capacity in a positive way. So, the geocell mattress can be used efficiently in geotechnical applications to enhance the strength characteristics of the sand bed.
