Performance of Footing on Clay Bed Reinforced with Coir

Cell Networks
Sreevalsa Kolathayar1; Saayinath Narasimhan2; Rizfana Kamaludeen3; and Thallak Gundurao Sitharam, F.ASCE4

Abstract: Geocells are three-dimensional polymeric hexagonal pockets that provide lateral confinement to the soil, thereby increasing the
bearing capacity of the soil bed. This paper briefly reviews past studies on geocell reinforcement of soil and presents a new product, cells
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made out of natural coir fiber, as an alternative to commercially available high-density polyethylene (HDPE) geocells. A series of model
plate load tests were conducted on unreinforced soil and on soil reinforced with coir geocells to understand the soil reinforcement mechanism.
It was observed that with the introduction of coir geocells, the load-bearing capacity of the soil bed increased up to three times and a
significant reduction in the settlement was observed in the underlying weak soil bed. The study also presents a comparative performance
evaluation of the natural coir cell-reinforced soil with conventional HDPE geocell-reinforced soil. Further, this paper analytically
demonstrates the influence of the lateral resistance effect and vertical load dispersion effect incorporated by coir cells in strengthening the
soil bed. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001719. © 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Geocell; Coir cell; Coir grid; Bearing pressure; Settlement.

Introduction large-scale model tests, demonstrated that the geocomposite mat-

Construction over weak soils poses challenging situations to civil
engineers as they are susceptible to differential settlements, poor
shear strengths, and high compressibility. Thus, the replacement
of weak soils by strong soils or improvement of the engineering
properties of the weak soil by different ground improvement tech-
niques is employed in such situations. In recent times, the use of
geosynthetics has become more prominent in the field of civil en-
gineering for soil reinforcement. Geosynthetics are polymeric ma-
terials which are usually provided for soil confinement to increase
the shear strength of the soil, which in turn increases the bearing
capacity of the soil. Geocells are three-dimensional polymeric
hexagonal pockets which provide lateral confinement to the soil,
thereby increasing the bearing capacity of the soil bed. At present,
geocells are commonly made of high-density polyethylene
(HDPE), polypropylene or polyester. In the construction field, geo-
cells are used for laying roads, slope stabilization, retaining walls,
canals, railways, embankments, etc.
Kazerani and Jamnejad (1987) reported that geocell reinforce-
ment substantially improved the stress distribution characteristics
of poorly graded materials. Bathurst and Jarrett (1988), through
1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Tech-
nology Karnataka, Surathkal 575025, India (corresponding author). ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1747-9284. Email: sreevalsakolathayar@gmail
.com; sreevalsa@nitk.edu.in
2
Masters Student, Institute of Transport Studies, Univ. of Leeds, Leeds
LS29JT, UK. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9508-3018. Email:
saayinath@gmail.com
3
Graduate Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineer-
ing, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820. Email: rizfana2@
illinois.edu; rizfanakamal@gmail.com
4
Director, IIT Guwahati & Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore 781039, India. Email: sitharam@iisc.ac.in
Note. This manuscript was submitted on April 11, 2019; approved on
January 16, 2020; published online on May 20, 2020. Discussion period
open until October 20, 2020; separate discussions must be submitted for in-
dividual papers. This paper is part of the International Journal of Geome-
chanics, © ASCE, ISSN 1532-3641.
tress model increases the bearing capacity and stiffer geocell dou-
bles the load-bearing capacity at a certain rut depth for a given
mattress thickness. The first experimental evidence and model for
the confinement effect of geocells was reported by Bathurst and
Karpurapu (1993). Pokharel et al. (2010) experimentally examined
the effect of shape, type, embedment, height of geocells, and qual-
ity of infill materials on the stiffness and bearing capacity of single
geocell-reinforced bases. They concluded that the geocell placed in
a circular shape had more stiffness and bearing capacity than that
placed in an elliptical shape. They also concluded that the perfor-
mance of the geocell depended on the elastic modulus of the geo-
cell material. Chen et al. (2013) conducted triaxial tests on geocell
soil composite samples and unreinforced samples to examine the
variation in the bearing capacity of the soil on varying the size,
shape, and number of cells. They concluded that the confinement
effect of the geocell vastly improved the cohesion strength of gran-
ular soil. Several other studies in the past highlighted reduction in
the vertical stress of the soil layer underlying the geocell layer due
to the load-spreading action (Moghaddas and Dawson 2012;
Sireesh et al. 2009; Dash et al. 2001). They reported that there is
an improved performance on the footing over a geocell layer due
to the transfer of the load to a higher depth through the geocell mat-
tress. Marto et al. (2013) conducted an extensive review on the
effect of geocell reinforcement in the sand and its effect on the bear-
ing capacity with experimental test and summarized that geocell in-
creased the bearing capacity and stiffness of granular bases. It was
also reported that the degree of improvement depended on the type
of infill material and the degree of geocell confinement. Hegde and
Sitharam (2015) analytically and experimentally proved that the ul-
timate bearing capacity of the clay bed reinforced with the combi-
nation of bamboo cell and bamboo grid provided much higher
bearing capacity than that of the polymer-based geocell- and
geogrid-reinforced clay beds. Rahimi et al. (2018) studied the rein-
forcing effects of a geocell-reinforced soil layer on uplift behavior
of anchor plates through uplift tests conducted in a test pit. They
reported that the peak and residual uplift capacities of anchor mod-
els were highest when the geocell layer over the anchor was used,
but with increasing anchor size and embedment depth, the benefit

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Int. J. Geomech., 2020, 20(8): 04020106

 of the geocell reinforcement deceased. Mehrjardi et al. (2019) stud- Table 1. Properties of soil bed
ied scale effect on geocell-reinforced soil and concluded that the Characteristic properties Value
footing’s width should be in the range 13–27 times the medium
grain size of the backfill. They also recommended that the cell Liquid limit (%) 64
size of geocells should be selected smaller than 0.67 times the foot- Plastic limit (%) 34
Optimum moisture content (%) 28.73
ing width for more stability. Mehrjardi and Motarjemi (2018) con-
Maximum dry density (kN/m3) 1.42
ducted a series of direct shear tests to examine the influence of soil Specific gravity 2.32
physical properties on interfacial properties of geocell-reinforced Differential swell test 77.78
granular soils and concluded that shear strength in the geocell– Plasticity index 30
soil interface was increased by increasing the medium grain size
and relative density of the soil. Dash and Choudhary (2019) carried
out experimental and numerical investigations on geocell-
reinforced vertical plate anchors in the sand and reported that pull-
out capacity continued to increase with geocell reinforcement and a
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shallow anchor with geocell reinforcement performed better than

the unreinforced anchor placed deeper. Liu et al. (2019) examined
the responses of geocell junctions and cell walls under various
loading conditions through uniaxial tensile, shear, peeling, and
splitting strength tests. Dehkordi et al. (2019) investigated the bear-
ing capacity and settlement of twin large-scale circular footings on
unreinforced and geocell-reinforced sand layers with various thick-
nesses. They reported that the maximum bearing capacity was
achieved when two footings were in contact, and the rigid base
was at shallow depth. Maheshwari and Babu (2017) proposed a
simple analytical approach that idealized geocell reinforcement as
a beam subjected to vertical symmetrical loads and foundation
Fig. 1. Particle size distribution of clayey soil bed and infill sand.
soil as nonlinear Winkler springs and presented charts that aid de-
sign of geocell-reinforced pavements.
Lal et al. (2017) investigated the performance of different forms
of coir products in reinforcing sand using triaxial apparatus regard- Table 2. Properties of infill sand
ing shear strength parameters and concluded that the cellular form Characteristic properties Value
of reinforcement provided efficient performance compared with
planar and discrete forms. Kolathayar et al. (2019b) conducted Specific gravity 2.65
Fineness modulus 3.62
model footing tests and analytical studies on areca leaf geocells
Effective size, D10 (mm) 0.215
and reported that the bearing capacity of the soil reinforced with Coefficient of uniformity, Cu 3.67
areca cell and areca grid was almost four times that compared Coefficient of curvature, Cc 0.919
with unreinforced soil. Angle of internal friction 40.29°
Coir fiber is a natural material which is plentifully available in Grading zone GRADE II
southern parts of India and in Sri Lanka. Coir is low cost,
environment-friendly, and popularly used as geotextiles. This
paper investigates the performance of cells made out of coir fiber Infill Material
as cellular confinement in soil and explores its suitability as an al- The infill soil selected for the testing program was sandy soil pass-
ternative to the conventional HDPE geocells available on the mar- ing through a 4.75 mm sieve with a specific gravity (Gs) of 2.65.
ket. The study also aims to evaluate the performance of coir cell in According to the Indian Standards Soil Classification System, the
combination with and without coir grids in comparison to that of sand was classified to be of Zone II. According to the Unified
HDPE geocell with and without geogrids. An attempt has also Soil Classification System (USCS), the sand can be classified as
been made to validate the experimental results with analytical SW. This sand was used to fill the geocell pockets in three layers
formulation. of equal depth. Table 2 lists the properties of the sand. Fig. 1
shows the particle size distribution of the sand. The angle of inter-
nal friction of the infill sand was obtained from the direct shear test
Materials as 40.29°.

Soil Bed Material Coir Geocell

The weak soil bed selected for the testing program was sourced
from a construction site located at Periyanayakam Palayam in
Tamil Nadu where a trench was dug out for the construction. It
was clayey soil passing through a 75-µm sieve with a specific grav-
ity (as per IS 2720 Part 3-1980) of 2.32. The various tests per-
formed included liquid limit test (IS 2720-Part 5-1985), plastic
limit test (IS 2720-Part 5-1985), maximum dry density test (Com-
paction test, IS 2720-Part 8), swell test (IS 2720-Part 40-1985), and
hydrometer analysis (IS 2720 Part 4-1985). Table 1 lists the soil
properties. Fig. 1 shows the particle size distribution of the soil.
The coir fibers were extracted from the husk of a coconut. The
husks of the coconut were taken and cured in an environment
that facilitated the action of microbes. The fibers were extracted
from the husks by the process of defibering. These fibers were
made into yarns that were woven into mats on handlooms or
power looms. The strips were hand-stitched and made into a geo-
cell network. The coir strips were cut from a coir mat woven
with the processed coir fibers. Table 3 lists the specifications of
the coir mat used in the study. Table 4 presents the properties of
coir geocell. Fig. 2(a) shows a typical geocell made of coir mat.

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Int. J. Geomech., 2020, 20(8): 04020106

 Table 3. Properties of coir mat
Quality AC1
Type of warp yarn Rope yarn
Ends per dm (min) 6
Type of weft yarn Anjengo
Runnage (m/kg) 240
Mass (g/m2) 4,550

Table 4. Properties of coir geocell and HDPE geocell

Specifications Coir cell HDPE geocell
2
Pocket size 125 × 105 mm 125 × 105 mm2
Cell depth (mm) 75 75
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Strip thickness (mm) 6.18 1.53 Fig. 3. Stress–strain plots of HDPE and coir materials.
Tensile strength (kN/m) 30.2 7.5
Friction angle between material and sand 32.08° 28°
Table 5. Properties of HDPE geogrid
Specifications Value
Material Polypropylene
Aperture size (mm) 30 × 40
Ultimate tensile strength (kN/m) 10
Shape of aperture opening Square

Table 6. Properties of coir grid

Type H2M7
Minimum weight (g/m2) 1,250
Warp × weft (/dm) 5×5
Mesh opening (mm) 15 × 15
Yarn variety 100% Beypore
Ultimate tensile strength (kN/m) 9.6

depths for 135 days. The results showed that the tensile strength de-
creased drastically for coir geotextile placed at a depth of 75 cm but
for the coir placed at 15 cm depth strength reduction was marginal.
Ayyer and Girish (2000) observed that the durability of coir geotex-
tiles could be increased by coating it with phenol, bitumen, cement,
etc. The same durability treatments can be applied to coir geocells
as well.

Fig. 2. (a) Hand-stitched coir geocell network; and (b) HDPE geocell
setup before sand filling.
Several research studies reported the use of coir as a reinforce-
ment material in the form of geotextiles (Subaida et al. 2009; Rao
and Balan 1997; Vinod et al. 2009). Rao and Balan (1997) in their
comprehensive study of coir geotextiles, found that the durability
of coir geotextiles was sufficient for reinforcement purposes. Coir
has a life span of 2.5 years (Rao and Balan 2000). Coir has high
tensile strength and retains much of its tensile strength when wet
(Vishnudas et al. 2012). The degradation of coir in soil depended
on the medium of embedment and the climatic conditions and
was found to retain 80% of its tensile strength after six months
of embedment in clay (Vishnudas et al. 2012). The surface-
modified coir geotextiles buried within lower depths of soil under
field conditions retained 70%–80% of their initial tensile strength
after 12 months (Sumi et al. 2018). Joy et al. (2011) conducted ten-
sile strength on coir geotextiles after placing it in a pit at different
HDPE Geocell
HDPE geocells are available on the market in different sizes. For
the present study, geocells of pocket size 250 × 210 mm2 were
sized down to the pocket size of 125 × 105 mm2. Table 4 presents
the properties of HDPE geocells along with coir geocells. Fig. 2(b)
shows the HDPE geocell used in the study.
Tensile strength tests have been conducted on both HDPE and
coir cell material, and the stress–strain plots are shown in Fig. 3.
It was observed that the coir can take higher strain and fails grad-
ually, whereas HDPE material fails suddenly. The ultimate stress
at failure for both materials was more or less the same. However,
HDPE geocells available on the market are of a smaller thickness,
whereas the coir mat used to make coir geocells is available with
higher thickness. Hence the tensile strength expressed in kN/m is
higher for coir geocells.
Coir Grid and Geogrid
The properties of the geogrid and coir grid used in this study are
presented in Tables 5 and 6, respectively. Fig. 4 shows the geogrid
and coir grid.

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Fig. 4. (a) Photograph of HDPE geogrid; and (b) coir geotextile of type H2M7.
Fig. 5. The schematic diagram of the experimental setup of the load
test.
Experimental Program
A set of model footing tests in line with standard plate load tests
were performed in a steel tank measuring 500 × 500 × 500 mm3,
to evaluate the effectiveness of coir geocells when increasing the
bearing capacity of the clay bed. The inner walls of the tank
were covered with a polyethylene sheet to prevent friction between
the soil and the tank. A steel rigid square plate measuring 100 ×
100 mm2 and 12 mm thick was used as a model footing. Fig. 5
shows the experimental setup of the plate load test consisting of
a hydraulic jack, dial gauges, prefabricated tank filled with soil
and load cell.
The tank was filled with 50 kg of clayey soil in five layers and
was uniformly compacted with 25 tamps equally using a metal ram-
mer to achieve the desired height of the foundation bed (approxi-
mately 200 mm). A predetermined amount of water (20% of the
weight of soil in each layer) was added to each of the layers to
maintain uniform moisture content. The tank was left undisturbed
for three days for even distribution of the moisture.
Geocell was placed on the foundation bed and was filled with
sand (infill material) in three layers of 25 mm thickness to fill the
© ASCE 04020106-4
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Fig. 6. Mechanism of shear strength due to friction between geocell
wall and the infill soil. (Adapted from Koerner 2012; Hegde and
Sitharam 2015.)
cell pockets. The sand was compacted with 50 tamps using a tamp-
ing rod with a diameter of 18 mm. The model footing was placed at
the center of the tank and the applied load was measured using the
load cell. The settlement of the plate was monitored by dial gauges
for every 35 kg load increment. The test was terminated when the
footing settlement obtained was equal to 50% the size of the load-
ing plate (i.e., 50 mm). In the case of the unreinforced sample, the
plate was placed directly on the surface of the weak clay soil bed,
and load test was conducted. The plate load test was carried out for
an unreinforced soil bed, an HDPE geocell-reinforced soil bed, an
HDPE geocell–geogrid-reinforced soil bed, a coir cell-reinforced
soil bed, and a coir cell–coir grid-reinforced soil bed.
Analytical Studies on Reinforcement Mechanisms
The geocell–geogrid-reinforced bed provided lateral confinement,
tensioned membrane effect, and a wider stress distribution. The
geocell layer contributed to the strength through two main features,
namely lateral resistance effect and vertical stress dispersion effect,
represented as
ΔP = ΔP1 + ΔP2 (1)
where ΔP = increase in bearing capacity; ΔP1 = lateral resistance
effect; and ΔP2 = vertical stress dispersion effect.
The lateral resistance effect and vertical stress dispersion effect
were due to the action of the geocell layer with the sand infill. The
increase in the bearing capacity due to the geocell was due to the
mobilization of the shear strength of the geocell. When the load
was applied to the soil, it caused shear stress between the soil
and the walls of the geocell. This caused the mobilization of the
shear strength of the geocell, which opposed the downward move-
ment of the soil, thereby increasing the bearing capacity of the soil
bed. Fig. 6 shows the mechanism of shear strength due to friction
between the coir cell wall and the infill soil (modified after Koerner
Int. J. Geomech.
 Fig. 7. Vertical stress dispersion mechanism in foundation beds rein-
forced with coir cells. (Adapted from Binquet and Lee 1975; Hegde
and Sitharam 2015.)
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2012). The lateral resistance effect component was calculated using
Koerner (2012) method, which can be presented as
ΔP1 = 2τ (2)
where τ = shear strength between the inner surface of the coir cell
wall and infill soil


ϕ only lateral resistance effect and vertical dispersion effect were
τ = Pτ tan2 45 − tan δ (3)
2
where Pτ = applied vertical pressure on geocell; ϕ = friction angle
of the sand used to fill the cell pockets; and δ = angle of shearing
resistance between the coir geocell wall and the soil contained
within.
The vertical dispersion effect mechanism reduced the pressure
on the soil to a great extent as the interconnected cells formed a
panel which spread the applied load over a wider area. Fig. 7
shows the schematic representation of the vertical stress dispersion
mechanism in the coir cell-reinforced foundation beds. The footing
of width B resting on the geocell-reinforced soil bed performed as if
the footing of width B + ΔB was resting on soft soil at a depth of D,
where D is the depth of the geocell and β is the load dispersion
angle that varies between 30° and 45°. If P is the applied pressure
on the footing, then actual pressure transferred to the underlying
soil is less than P, which can be expressed as


B
ΔP2 = P 1 − (4)
B + 2Dtanβ
It is to be noted that there was an induced increase of confining
stress on the infill materials, as a result the geocell mattress behaved
like a stiff slab. The confinement increased the soil modulus, and
this confinement was related to the stiffness of the geocell materi-
als. When a load was applied to the geocell-reinforced soil, there
was a lateral movement of soil which increased the pressure be-
tween the soil and the cell walls thereby increasing the stress on
the cells. The cells stressed due to application of load were pro-
vided with additional resistance by the adjacent cells, reducing
the lateral movement of soil. This resistance increased the confine-
ment thereby increasing the resilient modulus of infill material.
Mengelt et al. (2006) showed that the addition of geocell to a fine-
grained low plasticity infill material improved the resilient modulus
of the infill by 16.5%–17.9%. The confinement depended on the
stiffness of material of geocell as the cell walls were responsible
for the lateral resistance, that is, the higher the stiffness of the ma-
terial, the higher the resistance offered and the higher the confine-
ment. The increased confining stress was suggested by Bathurst
and Karpurapu (1993), using the rubber membrane theory proposed
by Henkel and Gilbert (1952) wherein the increase in confining
stress is proportional to the tensile stiffness of the geocell material.
The increase in cohesive strength based on the rubber membrane
theory for geocells made of geogrids was verified by Rajagopal
© ASCE 04020106-5
Int. J. Geomech., 2020, 20(8): 04020106
Fig. 8. Settlement-bearing pressure behavior of soil bed with different
sets of reinforcement.
et al. (1999) and Madhavi Latha (2000). In the present study,
considered for the analytical formulations.
Results and Discussions
The model tests were performed separately for different combina-
tions of reinforcement and bearing pressure-settlement behavior
was plotted to compare the performances, as shown in Fig. 8.
It was observed that the settlement was very high when the soil
was unreinforced and there was a significant reduction in the foot-
ing settlement when soil was reinforced with coir cell. The bearing
pressure corresponding to 50% settlement to width ratio (z/B) for
unreinforced soil was around 100 kPa whereas for the soil rein-
forced with coir geocell, footing could withstand up to 350 kPa
for the same settlement. Up to 31% z/B = 0.31, HDPE geocell-
reinforced soil showed higher bearing capacity and beyond that
coir cell-reinforced soil showed higher bearing capacity. There
was a drastic reduction in the bearing capacity of HDPE geocell-
reinforced soil after z/B = 0.10, whereas the reduction in bearing ca-
pacity for coir cell-reinforced soil was gradual without a sudden
failure. The coir cell-reinforced soil could withstand high strain
and high bearing pressure without failure.
Comparing the performance of soils reinforced with coir geocell
with that of coir geocell–coir grid, it was observed that the settle-
ment value for a particular load was slightly less in coir geocell–
coir grid combination than that of coir geocells. Only a marginal
difference in the settlement values was observed. This trend
could be attributed to the fact that the coir material is less stiff, ir-
respective of its form as grid or geocell. This implies that the ma-
terial property of coir fiber primarily contributes to the result.
Similarly, comparing the performance of soils reinforced with
HDPE geocell and HDPE geocells-geogrid, it was observed that
the settlement value for a particular load was slightly less in
HDPE geocell–geogrid combination than that of only HDPE geo-
cells. It was observed that there was a slight deviation in this
trend at the initial loads, which could be attributed to the closeness
(the distance) of the geogrid to the geocell.
The difference margin (extent of difference) in the settlement
values of the combination (HDPE geocell and HDPE geocells–
geogrid) was slightly higher when compared to that of the coir ma-
terial combinations (coir cells and coir cells–coir grid). This could
probably be due to the higher tensile strength of the geogrid com-
pared to that of the coir grid.
Int. J. Geomech.
 Table 7. Comparison of analytical results of coir cell-reinforced soil bed
S/B (%) S (m) Pcoir (kPa) Shear stress (kN/m2) ΔP1 ΔP2 Pur (kPa) ΔP1 + ΔP2 Pcoir − Pur Difference
0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
5 0.05 54.35 7.32 14.64 22.97 47.36 37.61 6.99 30.62
10 0.1 101.78 13.71 27.41 43.02 66.93 70.43 34.85 35.58
15 0.15 133.09 17.92 35.85 56.25 73.02 92.10 60.07 32.03
20 0.2 173.36 23.35 46.69 73.27 77.79 119.96 95.57 24.39
25 0.25 209.94 28.27 56.55 88.73 82.56 145.27 127.38 17.89
30 0.3 240.70 32.42 64.83 101.73 87.33 166.56 153.37 13.19
35 0.35 277.00 37.30 74.61 117.07 92.10 191.68 184.90 6.78
40 0.4 313.99 42.29 84.57 132.70 96.87 217.27 217.12 0.15
45 0.45 351.11 47.28 94.57 148.39 101.64 242.96 249.47 −6.51
50 0.5 377.69 50.86 101.73 159.62 107.91 261.35 269.78 −8.43
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Table 8. Comparison of analytical results of HDPE reinforced soil bed

S/B (%) S (m) PHDPE (kPa) Shear stress (kN/m2) ΔP1 ΔP2 Pur (kPa) ΔP1 + ΔP2 PHDPE − Pur Difference
0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
5 0.05 147.98 16.95 33.91 62.54 47.36 96.45 100.62 −4.17
10 0.1 191.70 21.96 43.93 81.02 66.93 124.95 124.77 0.18
15 0.15 213.28 24.44 48.87 90.14 73.02 139.01 140.26 −1.25
20 0.2 225.81 25.87 51.74 95.43 77.79 147.18 148.02 −0.84
25 0.25 238.34 27.31 54.62 100.73 82.56 155.35 155.78 −0.43
30 0.3 248.97 28.53 57.05 105.22 87.33 162.27 161.64 0.63
35 0.35 259.24 29.70 59.40 109.56 92.10 168.97 167.14 1.83
40 0.4 269.51 30.88 61.76 113.90 96.87 175.66 172.64 3.02
45 0.45 286.07 32.78 65.55 120.90 101.64 186.46 184.43 2.03
50 0.5 309.02 35.41 70.81 130.60 107.50 201.41 201.52 −0.10

The shape of the curve of HDPE geocell–geogrid network
showed that the initial settlement values were less when compared
to that of the coir geocell network. The settlement values of soil re-
inforced with HDPE geocells and HDPE geocell–geogrid corre-
sponded to 175 kPa were 7.06 and 8.53 mm, respectively. On the
other hand, the settlement values of soil reinforced with coir geo-
cells and coir geocell–coir grid corresponded to 175 kPa were
19.78 and 19.04 mm, respectively. This trend could be attributed
to the difference in the stiffness of the materials. It can be con-
cluded that the HDPE material had a higher stiffness and, hence,
was more brittle. HDPE geocell showed a sudden increase in settle-
ment values after a certain point of loading. It can also be con-
cluded that the coir material had less stiffness and hence was not
brittle. Therefore it showed a uniform increase in the settlement
on the application of loads. The coir geocell-reinforced soil ac-
quired higher strength when compared to HDPE-reinforced soil
at higher strain values. Further coir cell network had the potential
to take the further load without failure as evident from the plot.
The geogrid layer appeared to contribute very little to the bear-
ing capacity. HDPE geocell–geogrid network started showing bet-
ter performance beyond s/B ratio of 12% compared with only
HDPE geocell. This could be as result of the membrane effect
due to the geogrid coming into place after some strain with mobi-
lization of tensile force along the geogrid which initiates the grid
reaction that contributes to bearing capacity. However, for the
coir cell–coir grid network, the contribution from coir grid was
very marginal. It could be attributed to the material property of
the coir grid as it has a lower stiffness and tensile force mobilized
on the application of vertical load is minimum. The membrane
mechanism came into effect due to the vertical component of the
mobilized tensile strength of the planar grid (Zhang et al. 2010).
Sitharam and Hegde (2013) observed that the membrane effect
was initiated due to resistance by the soil reinforcement to bending.
With reference to the available literature, the maximum efficiency
of the geogrids was exhibited at optimum depths. Kolathayar et al.
(2019a) in their studies on areca leaf grids reported that the maxi-
mum bearing capacity of the planar areca grid-reinforced sand bed
was found at a depth to width of footing ratio of 0.33. At a smaller
depth, the reinforcing mechanism of the planar grid was activated
to a lesser extent due to the comparatively low overburden pressure
over the grid layer. Many studies in the past also reported similar
observations for different types of geogrids (Vinod and Bhaskar
2012; Ghosh et al. 2005).
The comparison of analytical and experimental test results for
coir cell network-reinforced soil bed, and HDPE geocell network-
reinforced soil bed is presented in Tables 7 and 8, respectively. The
analytical and experimental results of HDPE geocell-reinforced soil
were comparable, indicating that the increase in the strength of the
soil bed was primarily due to the vertical stress distribution effect
and lateral resistance effect of the geocell.
Conclusions
This study introduced a new product “coir geocell” for the cellular
confinement of a soil bed and demonstrated its efficient perfor-
mance through tensile strength tests, model footing tests, and ana-
lytical studies. The performance of coir geocell-reinforced soil bed
was compared with that of an unreinforced soil bed, and HDPE
geocell-reinforced soil beds with and without additional planar re-
inforcement. The main conclusions from the present study are sum-
marized as follows.
1) A threefold increase in bearing capacity of the soil bed was ob-
served on reinforcing the soil with coir geocell. The load-
bearing capacity of the soil was observed to be maximum in
the case of soil reinforced with coir geocell and coir grid.

© ASCE 04020106-6 Int. J. Geomech.

Int. J. Geomech., 2020, 20(8): 04020106

 2) The soil reinforced with HDPE geocells showed a sudden in-
crease in settlement values after a certain point of loading
whereas with coir geocell, a uniform increase in the settlement
was observed even at higher load. The coir geocell-reinforced
soil possessed higher strength compared with that of
HDPE-reinforced soil at higher strain values, which could be at-
tributed to the lesser stiffness of coir material. Hence coir cell
network has the potential to take higher loads even at larger set-
tlements without failure as evident from the plot.
From visible aberrations in the results of analytical and experi-
mental studies on coir cell-reinforced soil, it can be concluded that
the increase in the bearing strength of the soil on reinforcement
with coir cells could have been due to other parameters such as
the stiffness properties of the coir cell, which was not considered
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sreevalsa Kolathayar on 05/22/20. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
in the analytical study. This gap can be addressed in future studies
considering the material stiffness in reinforcement mechanisms.
To summarize, coir material woven into geocells and geogrids
proved to be a better alternative to increase the bearing capacity
of the weak soils. Coir is abundantly available, eco-friendly, and
cost-efficient. Further research studies on sustainable treatment of
coir fibers will help to address the durability issues associated
with coir. The durability of the coil geocells depends on the type
of soil, the environment that the cell is exposed to, the soil pH,
and the extent of the presence of micro-organisms. The durability
of the fiber network could be improved by surface treating them be-
fore putting them to use and the effect of moisture could be nullified
by treating the cell surface with materials which waterproof the coir
cell, without preventing the water seepage through the soil layers.
Further scope for future papers could include using the treated coir
cell and further testing of the soil-bearing capacity. Further studies
on surface-treated coir cells and their method of application are
necessary to demonstrate the same. Wider usage of coir material
in soil reinforcement as cellular confinement will be a boost to
coconut farming and small-scale industries to manufacture coir
geocells, especially in developing countries such as India and Sri
Lanka.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study ap-
pear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
Authors thank the Editor, Associate Editor and anonymous review-
ers for their critical comments and valuable insights which helped
improve the manuscript significantly.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
P = applied vertical pressure on geocell;
PHDPE = bearing pressure in HDPE geocell-reinforced soil bed;
Pcoir = bearing pressure in coir geocell-reinforced soil bed;
S = settlement of footing in meters;
S/B = ratio of settlement and the width of the footing;
Τ = shear strength between the inner surface of coir cell wall
and infill soil;
ΔP1 = lateral dispersion component;
ΔP2 = vertical stress dispersion effect component;
© ASCE 04020106-7
Int. J. Geomech., 2020, 20(8): 04020106
δ = angle of shearing resistance between the coir geocell wall
and the soil contained; and
ϕ = friction angle of the sand used to fill the cell pockets.
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