A comparative experimental study of geocell and geogrid-reinforced highway base layers under repeated loads

Abstract

This paper presents experimental results of laboratory model tests of geosynthetic reinforced highway base layers subjected to repeated loads. The potential benefit of geocell and geogrid, when used in the base layer as a reinforcement material, was examined and assessed by performance indicators including total, permanent (plastic), and elastic (resilient) deformation, traffic benefit ratio (TBR), rut depth reduction (RDR), percentage of elastic deformation, and resilient modulus (M_R). In the light of the results of this study, geocell and geogrid-reinforced bases outperform the unreinforced base in terms of elastic and permanent deformations. Further experimental results reveal that although the thickness of the base layer was decreased to a rate of 33%, geocell and geogrid enable a considerable reduction in the rut depth at an approximate rate of 21% and 13%, respectively. Moreover, when the thickness of the base layer remains constant, about 48% to 43% reduction in the rut depth was provided by geocell and geogrid reinforcement.

KEYWORDS:

• Repeated loads
• geocell
• geogrid
• permanent deformation
• elastic deformation
• resilient modulus (M_R)

Acknowledgements

This article was produced from the M.Sc. thesis study of the first author. The authors would like to thank KARTUĞ PLASTİK and GEOPLAS company for their support in the supply of geocells and geotextiles used in the experiments. The authors also express their endless gratitude to Mr. Mehmet ÖNAL for being with them and for his unwavering support whenever needed during the work for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).