Finite element analysis of geocell effects in road infrastructure applications

In recent years, soil reinforcement applications with geocell materials have become widespread all around the world. In this study, the performance of using geocells inside the under-road embankment applications, built on a weak natural soil layer within the effect of static plate load test, was investigated thanks to the finite element software, Plaxis 3D. In the first step, the numerical model was validated by comparing the experimental results obtained from a sample work of large-scaled geocell reinforced embankment application, with the finite element analysis. It is seen that the validation analysis agrees with the experimental results at a rate of 88,2%. Then, parametric studies were performed on the embankment model, which was verified by the numerical model analysis. In these parametric studies, an embedment depth of the geocell inside the embankment, a type of natural soil underlying foundation layer and an axial stiffness of the geocell were examined. A geotextile material was placed at the interface of soils with two different gradations and four geocells with different mesh openings and cell heights were used, in all analyzes. It was determined that the most effective position of the geocell occurs when it is placed at the interface of two soils according to the results of the parametric study. It has been observed that the efficiency of geocell is more active in terms of reducing settlement in soil type with lower bearing capacity. Moreover, a negligible amount of decrease occurs in settlement, as a result of increasing the axial stiffness of the geocell.