Shakedown Analysis of Geogrid-Reinforced Granular Base Material
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 25, Issue 3
Abstract
This research study was performed to examine the shakedown behavior of geogrid-reinforced unbound granular materials and evaluate the factors that affect the shakedown stress limits. To achieve this objective, the study was performed through conducting repeated load triaxial (RLT) tests on both unreinforced and geogrid-reinforced unbound granular specimens. A multistage RLT test, in which only one sample is needed to determine the shakedown stress limits, was selected in preference to a single-stage RLT test, in which several tests on multiple samples are required. Five geogrids of different tensile modulus and different aperture geometries (three rectangular or biaxial and two triangular or triaxial) were used. The test results clearly demonstrated the potential benefits of placing the geogrid within the unbound granular base specimen in terms of permanent deformation reduction. The benefits of the geogrid are more prevalent at higher stress levels and for higher tensile modulus geogrids. The inclusion of the geogrid has more of an effect on delaying the occurrence of range B shakedown behavior (i.e., increasing the plastic shakedown limit) than that of range C shakedown behavior (i.e., increasing the plastic creep limit) for specimens prepared at the optimum and the dry side of optimum. For specimens prepared at the wet side of optimum, geogrids have a negligible effect on delaying the occurrence of range B shakedown behavior (i.e., increasing the plastic shakedown limit) but have a significant effect on delaying the occurrence of range C shakedown behavior (i.e., increasing the plastic creep limit). Of the five geogrids used, the triaxial geogrid TX2, with triangular geometry and the highest tensile modulus, performed consistently better than the other four geogrids.
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Acknowledgments
The Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC), the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, and Tensar International Corporation funded this research. The authors thank Mark Morvant, Zhongjie Zhang, Gavin Gautreau, Benjamin Comeaux, and Amar Raghavendra at LTRC for providing valuable help to and support for this study.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 25 • Issue 3 • March 2013
Pages: 337 - 346
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 23, 2011
Accepted: Jun 1, 2012
Published online: Aug 25, 2012
Published in print: Mar 1, 2013
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