See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/270587625

Finite element analysis of embankments supported on geocell layer

Conference Paper · January 2001

CITATIONS READS

7 248

3 authors, including:

Madhavi Latha Gali Rajagopal Karpurapu

Indian Institute of Science Indian Institute of Technology Madras
120 PUBLICATIONS   1,591 CITATIONS    111 PUBLICATIONS   2,401 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Application of Image Processing in Geotechnical Engineering View project

Advanced Technologies for Post-Disasters Reconnaissance, Forensic and Environmental Impact Studies-Geotechnical View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Madhavi Latha Gali on 09 January 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Finite element analysis of embankments supported on geocell layer

K. Rajagopal G. Madhavi Latha N.R. Krishnaswamy

Associate Professor Research Scholar Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai India 600 036

ABSTRACT: The geocell reinforcement provides 3-dimensional confinement to the soil thus improving both
the strength and stiffness of the soil. The improvement in these two parameters is quantified in this paper
through standard triaxial compression tests on geocell reinforced sand samples. The results from these exper-
iments have been analyzed to develop simple relations to estimate the shear strength and stiffness of the geo-
cell reinforced soil in terms of the geocell properties. The frame work of hyperbolic model has been employed
to develop simple equation to estimate the stiffness of the geocell reinforced soil. This model has been im-
plemented in a finite element program to analyze the performance of geocell reinforced soils. The perfor-
mance of laboratory-scale embankments has been back-predicted using this model to verify its accuracy. This
model was found to be able to simulate the effect of the various parameters, viz. dimensions of the geocell
pockets, modulus of geocell material etc.

1 INTRODUCTION these tests are reported in Rajagopal et al. (1998).

The geocell is a 3-dimensional cellular mattress
made of geogrids or geotextiles, which provides all
round confinement to the soil. Because of this con-
finement, the strength and stiffness of the soil in-
creases. This type of soil reinforcement is ideally
suited for the construction over extremely soft soils
where the use of planar geosynthetics may not be
adequate.
The 3-dimensional finite element simulation of
problems with geocell reinforcement requires the
generation of membrane type elements in a criss-
cross manner to model geocell walls. This is rather
Typical test results from the triaxial compression
tests on geocell confined soil are shown in Figure 1.
The results have shown that the geocell confinement
does not change the friction angle of the soil where-
as it induces some apparent cohesion even to granu-
lar soils.
1200
800
(s1-s3) kPa

cumbersome and hence it is preferable to work with

a 2-dimensional equivalent model that can very well
replicate the behavior of a 3-dimensional system.
This paper deals with development of such a model four geocells
and its verification from back-analysis of laboratory 400 three geocells
tests on large-scale model embankments.
two geocells
single geocell
2 TRIAXIAL COMPRESSION TESTS
0
The strength and stiffness behavior of geocell en-
0 5 10 15 20
cased granular sands was investigated through a se-
ries of triaxial compression tests. The tests have used axial strain %
configurations of one geocell, two, three and four in-
terconnected cells. The geocells were made of four
different types of geotextiles whose 5% secant stiff- Fig 1. Typical stress-strain results from triaxial
ness ranged from 0.5 to 70 kN/m. The details of compression tests
It could be observed that as the number of geocells
is increased, the strength and stiffness of the soil in-
creased. However, when the number of cells was in-
creased beyond three, there was not much further in-
crease in the strength and stiffness. This result shows
that the strength and stiffness behavior observed in
laboratory tests with three inter-connected cells is
representative of geocells in real cases with many in-
ter-connected cells.
3 EQUIVALENT COHESIVE STRENGTH OF
GEOCELL CONFINED SOIL
Based on the results from the above triaxial com-
pression tests, an equation has been derived to esti-
mate the apparent cohesion induced to the soil in
terms of geometric and material properties of the
geocell based on the membrane correction theory.
The additional cohesive strength (cr) due to single
geocell encasement was obtained as,
s 3
cr  kp (1)
2
in which kp is the Rankine’s passive earth pressure
coefficient and s3 is the additional confining pres-
sure due to the membrane stresses given as,
2M c 1 2M 1 - 1 -  a  on one longitudinal side and thick steel plates on all
s 3     (2)
d (1 -  a ) d o  1 -  a 
 with two layers of plastic sheets whose inner layers
The modifications to above equation to consider
multiple cells are reported in Rajagopal et al. (1998).
4 STIFFNESS OF GEOCELL CONFINED SOIL
Due to the increase in the confining pressures exert-
ed on the soil by geocell walls, its stiffness will also
increase as illustrated in Fig. 1. The increase in the
confining pressure depends on the geometric proper-
ties of the geocell and the material properties of the
geosynthetic used to make the geocell. The follow-
ing well known hyperbolic equation was used to
quantify the effect of the confining pressure on the
Young’s modulus.
 R (1 - sin  )(s 1 - s 3 ) 
2 n
s3 
E t  1 - f  K Pa   (3)
 2c cos   2s 3 sin    Pa 
The different parameters in the above equation were
determined as described by Duncan and Chang
(1970). It was found that the parameter “n” was
nearly equal to 0.70 for all the samples and the mod-
ulus parameter “K” was found to depend on the
number of geocells and the modulus of the geotex-
tile used to fabricate the geocell. The Kr of the geo-
cell-soil composite was expressed in the proposed
model in terms of the Ku of the unreinforced soil and
the secant modulus of geocell walls (M in kN/m) as
follows,
Kr - Ku =  50 M0.16 (4)
in which  is an interaction parameter between the
geocell pockets. Its value for the case with three and
four cells was found to be equal to 4. The above
constants in the equation were determined by regres-
sion analysis of the test data. The validity of the
above equation was verified by successfully back-
predicting the experimental data by implementing
the above constitutive model in a finite element pro-
gram. In these analyses, the geocell confined soil
was represented using the equivalent shear strength
properties derived from Equations 1 and 2 and the
stiffness derived from equations 3 and 4.
5 LARGE-SCALE LABORATORY
EMBANKMENT MODEL TESTS
These tests were performed within a steel test tank
1800 mm long, 800 mm wide and 1200 mm height.
The tank was fitted with 20 mm thick perspex sheet
the other sides. All the sides of the tank were lined
were coated with lubricating oil to create perfect
plane strain conditions in the tank.
The clay soil was initially mixed with excessive
amounts of water and poked with steel rods to obtain
uniform mixing and then consolidated under a sur-
charge pressure of 10 kPa for one week. After this
consolidation, the layer was trimmed to a 600 mm
depth for all tests. This procedure was found to pro-
duce a soft clay bed with uniform properties. Several
undisturbed samples were collected from the bed af-
ter consolidation to determine the CBR value and
the vane shear strength of the clay soil. The unit
weight, moisture content, vane shear strength and
CBR value of the clay foundation were maintained
almost the same for all the model tests by carefully
controlling the amount of water added and using
uniform mixing procedures.
On this clay bed a layer of geocells was formed
with different pocket sizes and geogrids. After the
formation of the geocell layer, pockets of the geo-
cells were filled with soil. The soil within each cell
was compacted uniformly by tamping with a steel
rod having an enlarged base. The unit weight of in-
fill soil was maintained at 17 kN/m3 for all the tests.
The compaction quality of this layer was verified by
testing undisturbed core samples collected from at
least six individual cells. Above the geocell layer, a
symmetrical half of the embankment was construct-
ed using clayey sand in 50 mm lifts. The number of
blows on each layer was adjusted to achieve a uni-
form average unit weight of 19 kN/m3 in all the
tests.
The embankment was of height 400 mm with
crest width of 700 mm. The side slope was 2H:1V.
The surcharge pressure on embankment crest was
applied through a pre-calibrated proving ring using a
hydraulic jack supported against a reaction frame.
The uniform distribution of the surcharge pressure
was achieved by applying the loads through rigid I-
sections running over the full width of the test tank.
A thick steel plate and an expanded polystyrene
sheet were placed between the I-sections and the
embankment crest to ensure uniform load distribu-
tion.
The tests were performed with two different
pocket sizes with equivalent diameters (d) of 113
and 226 mm. The heights of geocell layers (h) were
varied from 100 mm to 250 mm in increments of 50
mm. The aspect ratio (h/d) of geocell pockets in the
tests varied from 0.44 to 2.21. In all the tests, the ge-
ocell layer was formed over the full length of the test
tank except in one test in which it was truncated at
the toe of the embankment.
The load was applied in small increments. Each
load increment was kept constant until the displace-
ments under that load increment reached steady
state. Typically the steady state was obtained within
10 minutes after applying the load. The vertical and
lateral deformations in the model embankment were
measured using dial gauges placed at different loca-
tions of the test tank. The details of the embankment
tests are reported by Krishnaswamy et al. (2000).
6 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF MODEL
EMBANKMENT TESTS
The finite element analysis of the above test em-
bankments were performed using plane-strain ideali-
sation. The geocell layer was represented using hy-
perbolic model using the properties estimated from
the previously described model. The incremental fi-
nite element equation was formed with out-of-
balance forces on the RHS and the tangent stiffness
matrix on the LHS to simulate the full non-linear
behavior of soil as closely as possible.
The soft foundation soil and the embankment
soil were modelled using elastic-perfectly plastic
type models. The geocell layer was simulated using
hyperbolic model with equivalent shear strength and
stiffness values. The dilation angles for all the soils
were assumed to be zero. In the finite element pro-
cedure, the excess stresses beyond the yield surface
were corrected back along the flow direction and
hence it is possible to simulate the dilation behavior
of the soil also, Rajagopal and Bathurst (1995). All
the interfaces between different materials were
simulated using 4-node joint elements. Typical finite
element mesh consisted of about 1500 nodal points,
2900 3-node triangular elements and 50 4-node joint
elements at the interfaces.
The average Young’s modulus (E) of the clayey
sand in embankment was obtained as 15,000 kPa
from the slopes of the unloading part of the triaxial
compression tests performed at different confining
pressures. The cohesion and friction angle of this
soil were 12 kPa and 34 respectively. The Poisson’s
ratio () of this soil was assumed as 0.30 which is a
reasonable value for this type of soil. Because of the
soft consistency of the foundation soil layer, no tri-
axial tests were possible on that soil. Hence, its
Young’s modulus (E) value could only be back-
analysed from the results of tests on unreinforced
embankments. By trial and error the E and  values
were obtained as 200 kPa and 0.45 by matching the
experimental data. The predicted surface heave was
quite sensitive to the  value of the foundation soil.
A value of 0.49 has given rise to excessive heave
predictions and hence its value was reduced to 0.45
by trial and error. The cohesive strength of soft clay
bed from vane shear tests was obtained as 10 kPa.
Both the embankment soil and the foundation soil
were modeled as elastic-perfectly plastic with Mohr-
Coulomb flow rule. The dilation angle was assumed
as zero.
The geocell layer was modeled using the hyper-
bolic model as described earlier. The modulus pa-
rameter of the unreinforced soil (Ku) was found to be
382. The same for geocell encased soil were esti-
mated from the earlier equations and are reported in
Table 1.
Table 1 Young’s modulus parameters for different
geocell layers
Type of M Kr equivalent Apparent
geocell diameter cohesion
layer of pocket (kPa)
(m)
UX 267 870 0.226 51
BX 183 842 0.226 42
BX 183 842 0.113 74
NP-1 75 781 0.226 24
NP-2 95 796 0.226 29
The shear strength properties of the interfaces were
determined from large-scale direct shear box tests
between the different materials. The shear stiffness
was reduced to a small value after the shear stress
exceeds the shear strength of the interface. The
normal stiffness was kept constant at 106 kN/m/m/m
so as to maintain the continuity at the interface.
The uniform settlement at the crest of the em-
bankment was simulated in the analysis by applying
equal vertical displacement to all the nodes on the
crest of the embankment. The pressure developed ments within that region of mesh. The different as-
corresponding to the applied displacement was de- pect ratios of geocell pockets were modeled by using
termined as the ratio between the sum of the reaction different apparent cohesion values for the layer as il-
forces and the embankment crest width. lustrated in Table 2. The excellent finite element
predictions for different pocket diameters for BX
geocells are shown in Figure 4.
7 RESULTS surcharge pressure
surcharge (kPa)
pressure (kPa)
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
The typical comparison between the measured and 0
predicted lateral deformations in unreinforced and
reinforced embankment (height = 100 mm with BX
geocells made of BX grid) slopes is shown in Fig-
ures 2 and 3. The H1, H2 and H3 are the measure-

lateral deformation (mm)

ments at three levels of the embankment. 5
pocket size
surcharge pressure (kPa) 113 mm

0 20 40 60 80
0
10 pocket-size
226 mm
5
H1
lateral deformation (mm)

10 unreinforced
15
15 H2 Fig. 4. Effect of pocket size on embankment behav-
experimental ior
20
It is interesting to note from the above figure that the
equivalent model developed is able to account for
25 finite element the effect of the diameter of the geocell pocket on
predicted
the overall response i.e. the effect of the aspect ratio
30 can also be accounted for using this equivalent mod-
H3
el.
35
Fig. 2. Lateral deformations in unreinforced slope 8 CONCLUSIONS
surchargepressure
surcharge pressure (kPa)
(kPa)
0 20 40 60 80 100 The equivalent model developed here is able to rep-
0 licate the 3-dimensional behavior of geocells using
2-d FE models. Further verification with other test
data is being performed.
2

9 REFERENCES
lateral deformation (mm)

4
Duncan, J.M. and Chang, C.Y., ‘Non-linear analysis
of stresses and strains in soils’, J. of Soil Mech.
6 and Foundns. Div., ASCE, 1629-1653, 1970.
Krishnaswamy, N.R., Rajagopal, K. and Madhavi
Latha, G., ‘Model Studies on Geocell Supported
8 experimental Embankments Constructed Over a Soft Clay
Foundation’, Geotech. Testing J., ASTM, 23, No.
2, 45-54,2000.
10 finite element Rajagopal, K. and Bathurst, R.J., ‘Behaviour of geo-
predicted synthetic reinforced soil retaining walls using the
finite element method’, Computers and Geotech.,
12 17, 279-299, 1995.
Fig. 3. Lateral deformations in reinforced slope Rajagopal, K., Krishnaswamy, N.R. and Madhavi
Latha, G., ‘Behaviour of sand confined in single
The different thicknesses of the geocell layers was and multiple geocells’, Geotextiles and Geomem-
modeled by assigning the relevant properties to ele- branes, 17, 171-184, 1999.

View publication stats