Bearing capacity of circular footings on multi-layered sand-waste tire shreds reinforced with geogrids

The presence of waste tires poses an environmental challenge as they occupy a significant amount of land and are expensive to dispose in landfills.However,reusing waste tires can address this issue when waste tires are used in geotechnical applications.To determine the viability of this approach,laboratoryscale tests were conducted to investigate load-bearing capacity of circular footings on sand-tire shred(STS)mixtures with shredded waste tire contents of 5%e15%by weight and three different widths of shreds.The investigation focused on analyzing the thickness of layers composed of STS mixtures,the soil cap,and the impact of geogrids on bearing capacity.The results indicate that a specific mixture of sand and tire shreds provides the highest footing-bearing capacity.In addition,the optimal shred content and size were found to be 10%by weight and 2 cm×10 cm,respectively.Furthermore,for a given tire shred width,a particular length provides the largest bearing capacity.The results agree well with that of previous research conducted by the first author and his colleagues in direct shear and California bearing ratio(CBR)tests.The primary finding of this research is that the use of two-layered STS mixtures reinforced by geogrids significantly enhances the bearing capacity.

Design and evaluation of epoxy asphalt geogrid stress- absorbing layer

In order to delay or eliminate the occurrence and expansion of the reflective cracking in the asphalt concrete overlay on old cement concrete pavement, an epoxy asphalt geogrid stress-absorbing layer（ EAGSAL） was designed. The EAGSAL consists of epoxy asphalt and fiberglass geogrid. The pull-out test, skewshearing test, bending beam test and fatigue test were conducted to evaluate the performance of the EAGSAL and a traditional stress-absorbing layer（ TSAL）. The results showthat the adhesive performance, shear performance, bending strength and fatigue performance of the EAGSAL with an optimal spraying volume of epoxy asphalt are better than those of optimally designed TSAL, and the maximum bending strain of the EAGSAL is very close to that of the TSAL. The EAGSAL has superior performance in reflective cracking resistance.Moreover, the EAGSAL with the optimal spraying volume of approximately 2. 0 L m^2 is thinner and lighter than the TSAL,which can decrease the thickness and improve the bearing ability of the whole pavement structure.

Stress distribution from railway track over geogrid reinforced ballast underlain by clay

Railway ballast forms a major component of a conventional rail track and is used to distribute the load to the subgrade, providing a smooth running surface for trains. It plays a significant role in providing support for the rail track base and distributing the load to the weaker layer underneath. Ballast also helps with drainage, which is an important factor for any type of transportation structure, including railroads. Over time, ballast progressively deforms and degrades under dynamic loading and loses its strength. In this study, extensive laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the effect of load amplitude, geogrid position, and number of geogrid layers, thickness of ballast layer and clay stiffness on the behavior of the reinforced ballast layer and induced strains in a geogrid. A half full-scale railway was constructed for carrying out the tests, which consisted of two rails 800 mm in length with three wooden sleepers(900 mm × 10 mm × 10 mm). Three ballast thicknesses of 200, 300 and 400 mm were used in the tests. The ballast was overlying 500 mm thickness clay in two states, soft and stiff. The tests were carried out with and without geogrid reinforcement; the tests were performed in a well-tied steel box of 1.5 m length ×1 m width ×1 m height. Laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the response of the ballast and the clay layers where the ballast was reinforced by a geogrid. Settlement in ballast and clay, soil pressure and pore water pressure induced in the clay were measured in reinforced and unreinforced ballast cases. It was concluded that the amount of settlement increased as the simulated train load amplitude increased, and there was a sharp increase in settlement up to cycle 500. After that, there was a gradual increase that leveled out between, 2500 to 4500 cycles depending on the frequency used. There was a slight increase in the induced settlement when the load amplitude increased from 0.5 to 1 ton but it was higher when the load amplitude increased to 2 tons. The increased amount in settlement depended on the existence of the geogrid and other parameters studied. The transmitted average vertical stress for ballast thicknesses of 30 cm and 40 cm increased as the load amplitude increased, regardless of the ballast reinforcement for both soft and stiff clay. The position of the geogrid had no significant effect on the transmitted stresses. The value of the soil pressure and pore water pressure on ballast thicknesses of 20 cm was higher than for 30 cm and 40 cm thicknesses. This meant that the ballast attenuated the induced waves. The soil pressure and pore water pressure for reinforced and unreinforced ballast was higher in stiff clay than in soft clay.

Development and Properties of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics Geogrid

Glass fiber reinforced plastics geogrid has a wide application in the field of soil reinforcement because of its high strength, good toughness, and resistance to environmental stress, creep resistance and strong stability. In order to get high-powered glass fiber reinforced plastics geogrid and its mechanical characteristics, the properties and physical mechanical index of geogrid have been got through the study of its raw material, production process and important quality index. The analysis and study have been made to the geogrid＇s mechanical properties with loading speed, three-axial compression, temperature tensile test and FLAC3D numerical simulation, thus obtain the mechanical parameters of its displacement time curve, breaking strength and elongation at break. Some conclusions can be drawn as follows： （a） Using glass fiber materials, knurling and coated projection process, the f^acture strength and corrosion resistance of geogrid are greatly improved and the interlocking bite capability of soil is enhanced. （b） The fracture strength of geogrid is related to temperature and loading rate. When the surrounding rock pressure is fixed, the strength and anti-deformation ability of reinforced soil are significantly enhanced with increasing reinforced layers. （c） The pullout test shows the positive correlation between geogrid displacement and action time. （d） As a new reinforced material, the glass fiber reinforced plastics geogrid is not mature enough in theoretical research and practical experience, so it has become an urgent problem both in theoretical study and practical innovation.

Shaking table test of subgrade slope reinforced by gravity retaining wall with geogrids

Gravity retaining wall with geogrids has showed excellent seismic performance from Wenchuan great earthquake.However,seismic damage mechanism of this kind of wall is not sufficiently clear.In view of this,a large shaking table test of the gravity retaining wall with geogrids to reinforce the subgrade slope was carried out,and based on the HilbertHuang transform and the marginal spectrum theory,the energy identification method of the slope dynamic failure mode was studied.The results show that the geogrids can effectively reduce displacement and rotation of the retaining wall,and it can effectively absorb the energy of the ground movement when combined with the surrounding soil.In addition,it also reveals the failure development of the gravity retaining wall with geogrids to reinforce the subgrade slope.The damage started in the deep zone near the geogrids,and then gradually extended to the surface of the subgrade slope and other zones,finally formed a continuous failure surface along the geogrids.The analysis results of the failure mode identified by the Hilbert marginal spectrum are in good consistency with the experimental results,which prove that the Hilbert marginal spectrum can be applied to obtain the seismic damage mechanism of slope.

Load-bearing characteristics of square footing on geogrid-reinforced sand subjected to repeated loading

A series of dynamic model tests that were performed on a geogrid-reinforced square footing are presented.The dynamic(sinusoidal)loading was applied using a mechanical testing and simulation(MTS)electro-hydraulic servo loading system.In all the tests,the amplitude of loading was±160 kPa;the frequency of loading was 2 Hz.To better ascertain the effect of reinforcement,an unreinforced square footing was first tested.This was followed by a series of tests,each with a single layer of reinforcement.The reinforcement was placed at depths of 0.3B,0.6B and 0.9B,where B is the width of footing.The optimal depth of reinforcement was found to be 0.6B.The effect of adopting this value versus the other two depths was quantified.The single layer of geogrid had an effective reinforcement depth of 1.7B below the footing base.The increase of the depth between the topmost geogrid layer and the bottom of the footing(within the range of 0.9B)did not change the failure mode of the foundation.

Experimental Study on Performance of Multidirectional Geogrid and Its Application in Engineering of High Slope

By analyzing the grille mechanical property, tensile strength and creep tests, and the fi eld tests, we investigated the characteristics and the reinforcement principle of multidirectional geogrid, and obtained the effect factors of grid characteristics, load and time curve and the shear stress of grille and sand interface. The reinforcement effect of geogrid in combination of typical project cases was illustrated and the following conclusions were presented. Firstly, multidirectional geogrid has ability to resist structural deformation, node distortion or soil slippage under stress, and can effectively disperse load. Secondly, with the increase of tensile rate, grille intensity increases and the creep value also increases with the increase of load. Thirdly, the frictional resistance balance between horizontal thrust of damaged zone and reinforced soil in stable region can avoid slope failure due to excessive lateral deformation. Fourthly, the multidirectional geogrid is able to withstand the vertical, horizontal and diagonal forces by combing them well with three-dimensional orientation, realizing the purpose of preventing soil erosion and slope reinforcement, which has a wide range of application and development in engineering fi eld.

Improved Simulation Method for Soil-Geogrid Interaction of Reinforced Earth Structure in FEM

The interaction between geogrid and soil is crucial for the stability of geogrid-reinforced earth structure. In finite element （FE） analysis, geogrids are usually assumed as beam or truss elements, and the interaction between geogrid and soil is considered as Coulomb friction resistance, which cannot reflect the true stress and displacement developed in the reinlbrcement. And the traditional Lagrangian elements used to simulate soil always become highly distorted and lose accuracy in high-stress blocks. An improved geogrid model that can produce shear resistance and passive resistance and a soil model using the Eulerian technique, in combination with the coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian （CEL） method, are used to analyze the interaction between geogrid and soil of reinforced foundation test in ABAQUS. The stress in the backfill, resistance of geogrid, and settlement of foundation were computed and the results of analysis agree well with the experimental results. This simulation method is of referential value for FE analysis of reinforced earth structure.

Effect of geogrid reinforcement on soft and medium dense soils

The field tests were carried out to examine the reinforcement effect of a geogrid on various conditions of embankment height,the number of passages of vibratory roller,the number of reinforced layer of geogrid,and soil properties.The test results of the dynamic earth pressure indicate that the soil reinforced by geogrid is very effective to increase the stiffness of soil,especially in soft soil.The dynamic earth pressure ratio,which is defined as the ratio of dynamic earth pressure to self weight of soils,exponentially decreases as the embankment height increases.The dynamic earth pressure ratio increases up to 80% for soft soils reinforced by both one layer of geogrid in place of no reinforced soils and two layers in place of a single layer of geogrid.

Visualization of pullout behaviour of geogrid in sand with emphasis on size effect of protrusive junctions

Geogrid has been extensively used in geotechnical engineering practice due to its effectiveness and economy. Deep insight into the interaction between the backfill soil and the geogrid is of great importance for proper design and construction of geogrid reinforced earth structures. Based on the calibrated model of sand and geogrid, a series of numerical pullout tests are conducted using PFC^(3D) under special considerations of particle angularity and aperture geometry of the geogrid. In this work, interface characteristics regarding the displacement and contact force developed among particles and the deformation and force distribution along the geogrid are all visualized with PFC^(3D) simulations so that new understanding on how geogrid-soil interaction develops under pullout loads can be obtained. Meanwhile, a new variable named fabric anisotropy coefficient is introduced to evaluate the inherent relationship between macroscopic strength and microscopic fabric anisotropy. A correlation analysis is adopted to compare the accuracy between the newly-proposed coefficient and the most commonly used one. Furthermore, additional pullout tests on geogrid with four different joint protrusion heights have been conducted to investigate what extent and how vertical reinforcement elements may result in reinforcement effects from perspectives of bearing resistance contribution, energy dissipation, as well as volumetric response. Numerical results show that both the magnitude and the directional variation of normal contact forces govern the development of macroscopic strength and the reinforcing effects of joint protrusion height can be attributed to the accelerated energy dissipation across the particle assembly and the intensive mobilization of the geogrid.

Evaluation of parameters affecting reflection cracking in geogrid-reinforced overlay

The influence of the most important parameters on the service life of reinforced asphalt overlay with geogrid materials in bending mode was examined by employing the Taguchi method and analysis of variance techniques. The objectives of this experiment was to investigate the effects of grid stiffness, tensile strength, coating type, amount of tack coat, overlay thickness, crack width and stiffnesses of asphalt overlay and existing asphalt concrete on propagation of the reflection cracking. Results indicate that the stiffnesses of cracked layer and overlay are the main significant factors that can directly improve the service life of an overlay against the reflection cracking. Generally, glass grid is more effective in reinforced overlay than polyester grid. Effect of crack width of the existing layer is significant when its magnitude increases from 6 to 9 mm.

Material Properties and Tensile Behaviors of Polypropylene Geogrid and Geonet for Reinforcement of Soil Structures

The properties and tensile behaviors of polypropylene (PP) geogrids and geonets for reinforcement of soil structures are investigated.Mass per unit area of the geogrids and geonets was weighed using an electronic balance and aperture sizes of the geonets were exactly measured using a computer.Laboratory tests were performed using a small tensile machine capable of monitoring tensile force and displacement.Tensile failure behaviors were described,and tensile index properties such as tensile strength,maximum tensile strain,tensile forces corresponding to different strains in the geogrids and gronets were obtained.The characterization of these indexes is discussed.

Outdoor Aging Performance of HDPE Geogrid

An outdoor aging test base for geosynthetics was established in Wuhan,central China to investigate the long-term aging performance of geosynthetics. Outdoor photo-oxygen aging tests for high density polyethylene(HDPE) geogrid have been carried out in the base. Test results show that in the initial nine months,the tensile strength of geogrid remains unchanged or even gets larger,while the corresponding strain at break decreases slightly,exhibiting hard and brittle trend due to secondary compensatory responses to the ultraviolet(UV) aging: UV provides the required chemical crosslinking energy,resulting in the polymer crosslinking reaction. Tensile strength of the geogrid increases by about 5% in the initial nine months,but decreases after the initial nine months. The long-term research results at the test base could provide first-hand data for researching the aging properties of HDPE geogrid.

Mechanism of Geogrid Reinforced Soil at Bridge Approach

Using Geogrid-Reinforced Soil （GRS） we studied the working mechanism and design method of GRS at bridge approach with high backfill by field experiment. In a highway section where the height of backfill is 13.5 meters, geogrids were used at two bridge approaches to address the bumping problems. Some soil pressure cells were used to measure the normal and lateral soil pressure at different locations in the roadbed. The experimental results indicate that geogrids in geogrid-reinforced soil （GRS） could produce an uplift force, the closer the location to the abutment, the larger the uplift force, and the reduction of measured soil pressures compared with theoretical values was the largest at the bottom of roadbed, less at the top than at the bottom, and the least in the mid-height of roadbed than at the bottom. These findings are different from those of the traditional greogrid-reinforced subgrade design method,

Investigations on pullout behavior of geogrid-granular trench using CANAsand constitutive model

Experimental and numerical investigations have been carried out on behavior of pullout resistance of embedded circular plate with and without geogrid reinforcement layers in stabilized loose and dense sands using a granular trench.Different parameters have been considered,such as the number of geogrid layers,embedment depth ratio,relative density of soil and height ratio of granular trench.Results showed that,without granular trench,the single layer of geogrid was more effective in enhancing the pullout capacity compared to the multilayer of geogrid reinforcement.Also,increasing the soil density and embedment depth ratio led to an increase in the uplift capacity.When soil was improved with the granular trench,the uplift force significantly increased.The granular trench improved the uplift load in dense sand more,as compared to the same symmetrical plate embedded in loose sand.Although it was observed that,in geogrid-reinforced granular trench condition,the ultimate pullout resistance at failure increased as the number of geogrid layers increased up to the third layer,and the fifth layer had a negligible effect in comparison with the third layer of reinforcement.Finite element analyses with hardening soil model for sand and CANAsand constitutive model for granular trench were conducted to investigate the failure mechanism and the associated rupture surfaces utilized.The response of granular material in the proposed model is an elastoplastic constitutive model derived from the CANAsand model,which uses a non-associated flow rule along with the concept of the state boundary surface possessing a critical and a compact state.It was observed that the granular trench might change the failure mechanism from deep plate to shallow plate as the failure surface can extend to the ground surface.The ultimate uplift capacity of anchor and the variation of surface deformation indicated a close agreement between the experiment and numerical model.

Experimental study on visco-elastic constitutive relationship and its parameters for geogrids

Geogrids are used as reinforcement materials widely in geotechnical and civil engineering fields. In this paper, a series of comparative tests on creep behavior of specific geoOgrids are conducted in the laboratory under different combinations of loading levels and environmental temperature. Based on the test results,comparative analyses are made to study long-term behaviors of isochronous load-strain curves, creep curves and relaxation curves for the specified geogrids. Furthermore, a constitutive model based on theory of visco-elasticity and tests results is proposed for geogrids and a rational procedure is presented in detail for determining the relevant parameters of the proposed model. Finally, the effect of tests temperature on model parameter values is investigated.

Numerical Analysis of Reinforcement Structure Stability Based on the Stress State of Geogrid

The reinforcement effect of geogrids is exerted through the fixing and occlusion with the surrounding soil to ensure the stability of reinforced structure. Based on the friction reinforced mechanism, the geogrids play the role of anti-shear and anti-pulling. So the indexes of interface strength identified by shear and tensile tests?are?usually used to conduct the stability analysis of reinforced structure. At present, the same indexes of interface strength?areadopted in the stability analysis of reinforced structure, where only one of the anti-shearing action or anti-pulling effect of geogrid is considered, which is separated from the practical stress state of geogrids and has certain limitation. To solve the problem, the paper adjusts the interface indexes of geogrids based on the potential sliding surface and the stress state of geogrids when the failure happens. So the method of stability analysis is concluded where cyclic iterative analysis is carried out till the interface characters of geogrids and the unstable mode of the whole structure are the same. The calculation examples of reinforced soil slope in the paper shows that the method can fully reflect the reinforcement of geogrids and can complete the adoption of numerical method in the stability analysis of reinforcement structure.

Bearing Capacity of Embedded Strip Footing on Geogrid-Reinforced Fly Ash

Fly ash is a pozzolanic waste from the burning of coal ash in thermal power plant which will be unchangeable in India and increasing environmental pollution. There is an urgent need of increasing bulk utilization of fly ash in geotechnical application. In this regard, a study was undertaken to investigate the bearing capacity of fly ash slopes (β) with the strip footing of width (B) 0.1 m located at different edge distances (De = 1B, 2B, 3B) from slope crest. These tests were conducted in the laboratory and the pressure-settlement behaviour of strip footing on unreinforced and reinforced fly ash slope having an angle of 45? was studied. The embedment ratio (Z/B = 0.30), and the depth of first layer of polyester geogrid reinforcement were investigated with different footing edge distances (De = 1B, 2B, 3B). From the experiment, pressure and settlements were measured and subsequently, the pressure settlement curves were drawn. It is observed from test results that the load carrying capacity is found to increase with an edge distance in both cases: unreinforced and reinforced slope. Also, a substantial increase is observed in the bearing capacity with the addition of geogrid reinforcement. It is observed that, the bearing capacity ratio (BCR) decreases with edge distance increase. These investigations demonstrate that both, the ultimate bearing capacity and settlement characteristics of the foundation, can be improved due to the inclusion of reinforcements within the fill.

FINITE-ELEMENT MODELLING OF SOIL-GEOGRID INTERACTION DEALING WITH THE PULLOUT BEHAVIOUR OF GEOGRIDS

To predict the behavior of geogrids embedded in sand under pullout loading conditions, the two dimensional plane-stress finite element model was presented. The interactions between soil and geogrid were simulated as non-linear springs, and the stiffness of the springs was determined from simple tests in the specially designed pullout box. The predicted behavior of the geogrid under pullout load agrees well with the observed data including the load-displacement properties, the displacement distribution along the longitudinal direction and the mobilization of the frictional and bearing resistance. (Edited author abstract) 8 Refs.

Scale Effects of Direct Shear Box on Behavior of Geogrid-Sand Interface

Direct shear test is one of the simplest and most economical tests to measure shear strength parameters of dry or saturated sandy soil as well as soil-geogrid interaction parameters.In the current study the effects of specimen size and density on soil-geogrid interaction parameters employing shear boxes of 6×6 cm,10×10 cm and 30×30 cm have been investigated.Results show that increasing specimen size of unreinforced sand with constant density results in a decrease in angle of friction which has been attributed to reduced confinement effect using larger shear boxes.The rate of reduction in angle of friction is increased by increasing soil density and using geogrid as reinforcement.