Model Studies on Geocell Reinforced Granular Sub-Bases

This paper presents experimental results from laboratory repeated plate load tests on unreinforced and reinforced model sections of unpaved road constructed in a steel test tank of 750 mm × 750 mm plane and 600 mm in height. Load was applied through a 150-mm diameter loading plate. Geocell reinforcement was used in the experiments for confining the granular sub-base. The effects of various parameters - such as height and position of geocell layer on the performance of these model road sections - were studied in the experiments. From the experimental results, it was observed that at higher settlements, the reinforced systems showedless permanent settlements and more elastic settlements than unreinforced systems. The secant modulus of the reinforced systems at any strain level was higher than that of the unreinforced systems. Increasing the height of the geocell layer resulted in improved performance up to a certain height of the geocell layer, beyond which, further increase in the height reduced the load resistance because of the inadequate granular overlay thickness.