Three-Dimensional Numerical Analysis on the Behaviour of Geocell-Reinforced Retaining Structures

The demand for geocell-reinforced retaining walls has increased due to the rising requirements of infrastructural development and constraints in land use. The cumbersome geometry of geocell poses challenges when it comes to numerical modelling. In this study, the geocell-reinforced retaining walls have been modelled using 3D finite element method to investigate the behaviour of the retaining wall by introducing multiple layers of actual honeycomb-shaped geocell mattresses. The result indicates that the provision of reinforcement significantly increases the stability of the retaining wall system. The lateral deformation in the retaining wall increases with an increase in both surcharge load and the wall's facing angle. The factor of safety was found to decrease by nearly 1.75 times with an increase in the wall's facing angle from 50 to 80 degrees. With an increase in the height of the geocell mattress from 125 to 250 mm, a significant reduction in lateral displacement was observed. However, further increase in the height of the geocell mattress shows marginal effect on the performance of the composite wall system. Besides, the proposed model shows encouraging agreement with the experimental results indicating that the present model can be used to study the behaviour geocell reinforcement retaining wall system.