Influence of soil density on performance of geocell-reinforced vertical anchor in sand

Influence of soil density on the performance of geocell-reinforced vertical plate anchors was studied through a series of model tests and numerical analyses. It is observed that the geocell-induced performance improvement is present over a wide range of relative density, varying from 30% (loose) to 95% (very dense). However, increase in load bearing capacity and stiffness of the anchor bed continues to increase with increase in density of the soil mass. Moreover, compared to the unreinforced case, the increase in anchor capacity due to increase in soil density tends to be greater with geocell reinforcement. This is attributed to the dilation-induced volume expansion that tends to mobilise enhanced resistance from the geocell reinforcement. In addition, the size of the rupture surface was found to increase with the increase in density of the fill soil, which indicates that, at higher density, a larger volume of soil mass has participated in sharing the anchor load, leading to the enhanced performance of the system. Numerical analysis using the computer program Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua was carried out. The computed results were found to be in good agreement with the observed ones.