Strain-softening model evaluating geobelt-clay interaction validated by laboratory tests of sensor-enabled geobelts

The interaction between geosynthetics and soil is vital for the stability and the bearing capacity of geosynthetic-reinforced soil structures. This contact behavior between geosynthetics and granular soils has been extensively studied in the literature while there is scarcity of it related to geosynthetics and cohesive soils particularly with softening responses. This paper presents a strain-softening model of geobelt-clay interaction based on direct shear test results under two compaction degrees. A theoretical model for evaluating the pullout behavior of a geobelt is proposed by employing the strain-softening model verified by direct shear tests and a hyperbolic model capturing the stress-strain curves of a geobelt calibrated by uniaxial tensile tests. The proposed model is numerically solved and validated by pullout tests. A kind of sensor-enabled geobelt (SEGB) was adopted in all the aforementioned tests. Both test and numerical results show an overall softening trend in terms of front pull-out force versus displacement. Generally, the model proposed can give reasonably good agreement between calculations and test data during the whole pull-out range. Also, the strain distributions measured by SEGBs demonstrate the working process during the pullout tests, which makes SEGBs a potentially new choice for the strain measurements of in-soil geobelts.