Model studies of square footings on geocell-reinforced slopes

Abstract

This study examines the behaviour of square footings located on unreinforced, single-, and double-layer geocell-reinforced sand slopes through a series of reduced-scale model tests. Contributing factors such as the distance between the footing and the edge of the slope, depth of burial of the first geocell layer, vertical span between successive layers of the geocell, length and width of the geocell mattresses, and the number of geocell layers were considered, and their effects are discussed in detail. The results indicate that geocell reinforcement plays a more effective role as the distance between the footing and the edge of the slope decreases. The optimum depth of placement of the first geocell layer for both single- and double-layer reinforced slopes was determined, and was found to be independent of the length of the geocell. In addition, the performance of the footing continued to decrease with greater vertical distance between the top and lower geocell layers. Only a marginal improvement in the behavior of the tested models was observed for a range of widths of the geocell.