抄録
Soft clay is normally avoided during construction due to its low bearing capacity and high susceptibility of consolidation. The safe bearing capacity of soft clay is considerably increased with insertion of geocells at suitable depth from the foundation. Although it is known that geocell reinforced soft clay behaves differently in confined and unconfined conditions, but a detailed study is not reported yet. Moreover, the behavior of geocell reinforced soft clay under dynamic loading is also not properly studied. Extant of increase in bearing capacity of soft clay due to insertion of geocells is also not known. Present research is intended to study a series of static and cyclic triaxial tests to understand the effect of geocells on modification of strength parameters and dynamic properties of soft clay. Both confined and unconfined tests have been done considering actual site condition. It is observed that under unconfined conditions, the geocells will compress resulting in increase in strain, whereas, under confined condition, the geocells will stiffen the soil resulting in increase in stress. It is also observed that maximum improvement in axial stress is achieved when the geocells are placed at a depth of one fourth of the loading diameter. However, position of geocells does not have a significant effect on stress strain curve in unconfined condition. It is observed that the shear modulus increases and the damping ratio decreases due to insertion of geocells. A study has also been conducted to obtain the effect of geocells on modification of residual strength after cyclic loading. It is observed that reduction of strength due to cyclic loading is much less due to insertion of geocells.
