DESIGN OF GEOCELL SUPPORTED EMBANKMENTS

G. Madhavi Latha¹, K. Rajagopal², and N. R. Krishnaswamy³

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a simple method for the preliminary design of geocell supported embankments. This method uses a general-purpose computer program for the stability analysis of geocell supported embankments. In this program, the geocell layer at the base of the embankment was considered as an equivalent soil layer, whose shear strength properties were obtained from relevant equations. For the given configuration of the embankment, the dimensions and properties of the geocell layer required to be provided at the base to sustain the given surcharge pressure can be obtained from simple trial analyses using the computer program. The validity of the procedure was verified by conducting stability analysis of models of geocell supported embankments, constructed and tested in laboratory.

The minimum factor of safety obtained from the slope stability program for the experimental configurations of embankments at observed failure surcharge pressure was obtained as nearly one for most of the cases, suggesting that this procedure can be successfully used for the preliminary design of geocell supported embankments. A design problem describing the steps involved in the analysis is presented.