Numerical investigation of geocell reinforced slopes behavior by considering geocell geometry effect

The present study evaluates geocell reinforced slope behavior. A three dimensional analysis is carried out to simulate soil and geocell elastoplastic behavior using the finite difference software FLAC(3D). In order to investigate the geocell reinforcement effect, the geocell aperture size, thickness, geocell placement condition and soil compaction had been considered as variable parameters. Moreover, a comparison is evaluated between geocell reinforcing system and conventional planar reinforcement. The obtained results showed that the pocket size, thickness and soil compaction have considerable influence on the geocell reinforcement slope performance. Moreover, it was found that the critical sliding surface was bounded by the first geocell reinforcement and the slope stability increases, by increasing the vertical space between geocell layers. In addition, the comparison between geocell and geogrid reinforcement indicates the efficiency of using cellular honeycomb geosynthetic reinforcement.