Impact of various geometrical parameters of geocell on reinforced pavement under cyclic loading conditions

抄録

The finite element (FE) software PLAXIS 3D is utilised to conduct a numerical analysis of the impacts of geocell reinforcement on the behaviour of flexible pavements subjected to cyclic loading conditions. The fidelity of the FE model was confirmed by comparing the findings from the numerical analyses to the existing experimental investigation reported in past literature. The impact of the geometrical parameters of the geocell (width, b, and height, h) on the overall performance of the pavement was explored and compared with the findings obtained from the unreinforced section. As primary parameters, the surface deformations, and the pressure at the subbase-subgrade interface were obtained. The study indicates that increasing the height of geocells in the pavement layer results in a substantial reduction in deformation values, with a notable range of 45% to 81%. In contrast, wider geocell widths appear to have the opposite effect, causing deformation values to rise by around 23% to 93%. Also, the study shows that the higher geocell heights resulted in lower pressure transfer to the underlying subgrade by approximately 45% to 81% compared to lower heights of geocell. It was observed from the study that the geocell with higher heights tend to contribute to reduced deformation, pressure distribution and improved pavement stability, while wider geocells might not provide the same level of benefit and could even lead to increased deformation and pressure distribution value. As compared to the unreinforced pavement, the vertical stress at the interface between the subbase and the subgrade was reduced by around 0.30 to 0.58 times for the geocell-reinforced pavement.