Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

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Numerical study on stability analysis of geocell reinforced slopes by considering

the bending effect
Iman Mehdipour a, *, Mahmoud Ghazavi b, Reza Ziaie Moayed c
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Buinzahra Branch, Islamic Azad University, Buinzahra, Iran
b
Faculty of Civil Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
c
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Geocell reinforced soil may be used in many areas of geotechnical engineering, however, there is little
Received 21 April 2012 information on analysis of the behavior of geocell reinforced slopes. Due to the height of the geocell, the
Received in revised form geocell-reinforced mattress more likely provides a beam or plate effect than a planar membrane effect.
10 December 2012
The purpose of this paper is to use beam model to simulate the geocell behavior as a flexible slab
Accepted 22 January 2013
Available online
foundation which can carry both bending and membrane stresses for stability analysis of geocell rein-
forced slopes. In addition, the interface resistance between the geocellesoil was considered. The Young’s
modulus of geocell encased soil was obtained from the elastic modulus of the unreinforced soil and the
Keywords:
Geocell
tensile modulus of the geocell reinforcement using an empirical equation. Parametric studies of geocell
Beam model reinforced slope are carried out by varying placement depth of the geocell layer, number of geocell layers,
Failure surface vertical spacing between reinforcement layers, length, thickness and Young’s modulus of the geocell
Geocell bending stiffness reinforcement. The influence of slope geometry, shear strength properties and soil compaction on the
Slope stability behavior of geocell reinforced slope is also discussed. The obtained results show that geocell rein-
Numerical analysis forcement acts as a wide slab and thus it can restrain the failure surface from developing and redistribute
the loads over a wider area. Therefore, under the geocell placement, the lateral deformation and shear
strain values of the slope considerably decrease. Furthermore, the effective placement of geocell re-
inforcements is found to be between the middle of the slope and the middle of critical failure surface of
the unreinforced slope.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Geocell mattresses are widely used in soil reinforcement due to
their three-dimensional configuration, which can effectively confine
and reinforce soil filled in their pockets. Recently, the beneficial ef-
fects of using geocell to increase load-carrying capacity of soil and
decrease footing settlement has been investigated by several re-
searchers (Dash et al., 2003, 2004; Krishnaswamy et al., 2000;
Leshchinsky and Ling, 2013b; Latha et al., 2006; Latha and Murthy,
2007; Moghaddas Tafreshi and Dawson, 2010a, b; Moghaddas
Tafreshi and Dawson, 2012; Sireesh et al., 2009; Tavakoli Mehrjardi
et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2010a,b; Zhou and Wen,
2008). Zhao et al. (2009) reviewed the geocell-reinforced layers
under embankments and suggested that the main geocell layer
functions in three aspects: (a) lateral resistance effect, (b) vertical
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ98 21 88968111; fax: þ98 21 88959740.
E-mail address: i.mehdipour@qiau.ac.ir (I. Mehdipour).
stress dispersion effect, and (c) membrane effect. Dash (2010) also
indicated that the geocell mattress behaves as a wide slab that
transmits the footing pressure to underlying soil layer and re-
distributes over a wider width. In addition, the effect of geometry of
the geocell reinforcement i.e. height, width, pocket size, pattern of
formation, and the position of placement on the performance of the
foundation bed has been extensively studied (Dash et al., 2007; Latha
et al., 2009).
The numerical analysis of geocell reinforced soils requires truly
3-dimensional simulation because of all round confinement of soil
by geocell pockets. Numerical simulations have shown that geocell
confinement effectively increases stiffness and strength of a gravel
embankment, while reducing vertical settlement and lateral
spreading. However, due to the complex geometry of geocells, it
would be preferable to work with equivalent 2-dimensional models
that can represent the 3-dimensional nature of the geocell rein-
forcement. Latha (2000) and Rajagopal et al. (2001) proposed an
equivalent 2-dimensional model for representing the strength and
stiffness of geocell confined soil. In this regard, Latha et al. (2006)

0266-1144/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2013.01.001
24 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
and Latha and Rajagopal (2007) used this model to design the
geocell-supported embankments based on the study of laboratory
model tests. In their analyses, the geocell layer was treated as an
equivalent soil layer with additional cohesive strength and stiffness
derived from the confinement effect.
In all of the above studies, the effectiveness of geocell rein-
forcement to improve the bearing capacity and settlement of
foundations has been investigated. However, there are limited
published reports on application of geocell in retaining structures
and slopes. Chen and Chiu (2008) performed model tests of a geo-
cell reinforced wall to examine the behavior of the structure
including the deformation on the wall face and the settlement of
the backfill. Their results showed that an increase in the length of
geocells can be regarded as providing reinforcement similar to
geogrid layers. Also, Ling et al. (2009) showed that geocell can be
used successfully to form gravity walls as well as reinforcement
layers.
Slope stability analysis has been achieved considerable atten-
tion in the literature. However, there is little information on the
behavior of geocell reinforced slopes. The objective of this paper is
to present the results of parametric studies on geocell reinforced
slopes. Parametric studies of geocell reinforced slope are carried
out by varying placement depth of the geocell layer, number of
geocell layers, vertical spacing between reinforcement layers,
length, thickness, and Young’s modulus of the geocell reinforce-
ment. In addition, the influence of slope geometry, shear strength
parameters, and soil compaction on the behavior of geocell rein-
forced slope is discussed. In analyses, geocell is modeled as beam
element which can carry both bending and membrane stresses. The
factors of safety and the locations of critical failure surfaces are
obtained using the strength reduction method (SRM). The validity
of the numerical study is also verified by comparing the results
with experimental published reports and then parametric studies
will be performed.
2. Problem statement and theoretical framework
In the literature, there is evidence to show that equivalent
composite model is appropriate to simulate the geocell behavior
(Latha et al., 2006; Latha and Rajagopal, 2007; Latha et al., 2008,
2009). However in all studies, equivalent composite model was
used to estimate the bearing capacity and settlement of geocell
reinforced foundations. In addition, there is no published report on
equivalent composite model to obtain the factor of safety of geocell
reinforced slope. Matsui and San (1992) and Cheng et al. (2007)
indicated that the slope stability factor of safety is relatively
insensitive to the elastic modulus of soil. Therefore, it seems that
Fig. 1. Schematic view of (a) failure mechanism (b) acting forces on geocell reinforced slope.
the equivalent stiffness of geocell does not considerably affect the
factor of safety of the slope. Thus in this case, one of main properties
of geocell reinforcement in the equivalent composite model is
ignored and only cohesive strength of the equivalent model is
considered which increases the factor of safety.
Because of shear and bending rigidity, the behavior of a geocell
layer is similar to a foundation beam or plate (Dash et al., 2001,
2007; Pokharel et al., 2010; Thallak et al., 2007). In this case, the
flexural rigidity (EI) plays an important role to decrease the
deformation and increase the efficiency of the system. Fakher and
Jones (2001) showed that considering the bending stiffness of the
reinforcement can increase the bearing capacity of the soil. Dash
et al. (2007) performed model tests and observed that the geocell
mattress behaves as a flexural member and by increasing the
thickness of the mattress deep beam behavior becomes predomi-
nant. Yang et al. (2010) showed that geocell strip may carry con-
siderable bending load in addition to the membrane stresses. Also,
Zhang et al. (2009, 2010a,b) found that the modulus and the height
of the geocell contribute to the rigidity of the beam.
In embankment and slope analyses, because the length of the
model is much greater than its width, a two-dimensional section
can be used to simplify the problem (Dash et al., 2007; Latha and
Rajagopal, 2007; Zhang et al., 2009, 2010a,b). The schematic view
of failure surface and acting forces on geocell reinforced slope is
illustrated in Fig. 1. As seen, T, M and Q are tension, bending
moment, and shear force of the geocell reinforcement, respectively.
Moreover, S and N are the shear and normal forces acting on the
failure surface. Due to the soil weight, load q(y) and P(y)act on
super-face and subgrade reaction at bottom of geocell, respectively.
In addition, st(x) and sb(x)are interface resistance at the top and
bottom of the geocell, and h is the geocell thickness. As shown in
Fig. 1, the tension, bending moment, and shear force of the geocell
produce the resisting moment which leads to an increase in the
factor of safety of the slope.
Force analysis of geocell reinforcement element is demonstrated
in Fig. 2. Due to its three-dimensional structure, geocell can provide
lateral confinement to soil particles within cells. In addition, the
geocell behaves as a stiffer bed that redistributes stress over a wider
area and thus a value of load q(y) and st(x) which acts on super-face
are more than load P(y)and sb(x) at the bottom of the geocell layer.
Therefore, loads [q(y)  P(y)] and also [st(x)  sb(x)] produce M1 as
a driving moment. In addition, by considering the geocell as a beam,
the tensile and compressive strength of the geocell reinforcement is
highly mobilized and thus two forces produce a resisting moment
(M2) with respect to the neutral axis of the beam. In other words,
the contribution of geocell bending effect is taken into consid-
eration by adding the moment of the horizontal force (including the
 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
Fig. 2. Force analysis of geocell reinforcement element.
tensile force within the beam and the lateral confining force of soil
particles within cells) with respect to the neutral axis. It should be
noted that soil particles within geocell cells are capable of resisting
compressive stresses but incapable of resisting tensile stress. Thus,
the tensile force within the beam is tolerated by geocell mattress.
By considering the influence of moments M1 and M2 and enforcing
P the beam, it acts like a flexible member that takes moments. The
MNeutral axis ¼ 0, the following equation can be obtained:
Mg ¼ M2  M1
where Mg is the bending moment of geocell reinforcement.
Therefore, it is reasonable to model geocell mattress as a founda-
tion beam to simulate the geocell like a flexible slab which can carry
both bending and membrane stresses.
3. Numerical modeling
The finite difference program FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of
Continua) 2D program was adopted in this study to investigate the
behavior of the geocell reinforced slope. FLAC has been used by
several researchers (Cheng et al., 2007; Wei and Cheng, 2009, 2010)
to study the factor of safety (FOS) of reinforced slope by using
strength reduction method (SRM). In this method, soil strength
parameters are reduced until the slope becomes unstable. There-
fore, the factor of safety is defined as the ratio of the initial strength
parameters and the critical reduced strength parameters. In addi-
tion, in this study different failure modes like pull-out failure and
tensile failure were considered and the minimum FOS was
determined.
3.1. Numerical mesh and boundary condition
A 30 m high and 50 m long grid is considered to represent the
model slope in plan strain analysis (Fig. 3). A relatively fine mesh is
used near the slope while a coarse mesh is used further from the
crest of the slope. In addition, the bottom and lateral boundaries of
the slope domain are taken far enough from the reinforcement to
Fig. 3. Typical soil domain discretization.
25
avoid boundary effects. The bottom boundary is fixed against
movements in all directions while the vertical boundaries are
restricted in the horizontal direction and free to move in the ver-
tical direction.
3.2. Material and reinforcement properties
In this study, the MohreCoulomb failure criterion is used for soil
behavior. To study the effect of soil shear strength, two different soil
properties are considered: sandy soil with c ¼ 2 kPa and
f ¼ 30 (FOS ¼ 1.24 and 0.52 for a ¼ 30 and a ¼ 60 , respectively)
and clayey soil with c ¼ 20 kPa and f ¼ 10 (FOS ¼ 1.17 and 0.76 for
a ¼ 30 and a ¼ 60 , respectively). The geocell layer is modeled
using beam elements in FLAC, which can carry both bending and
membrane stresses. Beam elements are two-dimensional elements
with three degrees of freedom (x-translation, y-translation, and
rotation) at each end node. In this study, the beam is assumed to
behave as a linearly elastic material with both axial tensile and
compressive failure limits. Also by assigning a moment of inertia to
required input parameters for the beam elements in FLAC are (1)
(1) cross-sectional area (A), (2) second moment of area (I), (3) elastic
modulus (Eg), (4) axial peak tensile yield strength (Fy(tens.)), (5)
axial compressive yield strength (Fy(comp.)), and (6) density (gg).
Properties of soil and geocell beam element used in numerical
analyses are given in Table 1.
The Young’s modulus of the geocell reinforced soil is obtained
from the equivalent stiffness of geocell encased soil. Based on tri-
axial compression tests on geocell encased soil, Latha (2000) and
Rajagopal et al. (2001) proposed the following equation to express
the Young’s modulus of geocell reinforced soil (Eg) in terms of the
secant modulus of the geocell material (M), the Young’s modulus
parameter of the unreinforced soil (Ke) and the average horizontal
stress at the mid height of the geocell layer (s3).
 
Eg ¼ 4ðs3 Þ0:7 Ke þ 200 M 0:16 (2)
The modulus parameter in the above equation corresponds to
the modulus number in hyperbolic model proposed by Duncan
and Chang (1970). Therefore, Young’s modulus of the geocell
reinforced soil is stress-dependent and also it is affected by the
properties of infill material. The Young’s modulus parameter of the
unreinforced soil is assumed to be 500 and 200 for sandy soil and
clayey soil, respectively. In addition, the coefficient of lateral earth
pressure for sand and clayey soil is considered as 0.35 and 0.7,
respectively. It should be noted that, the values in the parametric
analyses were approximated by numerical and experimental
Table 1
Properties of soil and geocell beam element used in the numerical analyses.
Soil properties
Unit weight (kN/m3) 20
Young’s modulus (MPa) 25
Poisson’s ratio 0.3
Shear strength parameter Case I: c ¼ 2 kPa and f ¼ 30
Case II: c ¼ 20 kPa and f ¼ 10
Geocell properties
Thickness (m) 0.005, 0.05, 0.2 and 0.5
Second moment of 1.041  108, 1.041  105, 6.67  104
area (m4) and 0.01041
Secant modulus 100, 150, 200 and 500
(kN/m)
Tensile yield strength 60
(kN/m)
Compressive yield 0
strength (kN/m)
26 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
Fig. 4. Schematic view of the model embankment studied by Krishnaswamy et al.
(2000).
published reports regarding the geocell reinforcement such as
Latha et al. (2006), Latha and Rajagopal (2007) and Latha et al.
(2008, 2009).
3.3. Interface properties
The interface shear stressestrain relationship between the
geocell and the foundation soil was modeled based on Mohre
Coulomb sliding criterion according to Eq. (3):
Fs max ¼ ci  A þ Fn tan fi
where Fs max is shear force at the geocellesoil interface; ci, fi and A
are the adhesion, angle of friction and contact area between geocell
and soil, respectively. Fn is normal force at the interface.
In this study, the friction and adhesion of the geocellesoil
interface are considered as 2/3f and2/3c, respectively. The value
of geocellesoil interface used in this paper is similar to those used
by Leshchinsky and Ling (2013a), Saride et al. (2009) and Yang et al.
(2010). In these studies, linearly elastic plate elements or geogrid
structural elements was used to model the 3-dimensional geocell
reinforcement. It is noted that it would be more reasonable to as-
sume the values of fi ¼ f and ci ¼ c at the top and bottom of the
beam because most of the contact areas are between soil and soil.
Therefore, the obtained results from this study would be conser-
vative. In addition, the normal and the shear stiffness are calculated
using the FLAC recommendations as:
 
K þ 4=3 G
kn ¼ ks ¼ 10  max
zmin
Fig. 5. Comparison between numerical results and experimental measurements of Krishnaswamy et al. (2000).
where K and G ¼ the bulk and shear moduli, respectively; and
zmin ¼ the smallest width of an adjoining zone in the normal di-
rection. In this study the normal and the shear stiffness were cal-
culated as 108 Pa/m.
3.4. Validation of numerical model
The validity of the numerical modeling is verified by comparing
the results with two experimental published reports. The aim of the
first validation is to verify the performance of the single beam layer
as geocell reinforcement. It is also emphasized that, to the best
knowledge of the authors, there are no experimental data on the
use of multiple geocell layers in slopes. Therefore, in order to val-
idate the numerical analysis for multilayer reinforcements, the
second verification is used to verify the performance of multiple
beam layers as geogrid reinforcement in slope.
3.4.1. Earth embankment constructed over weak foundation soil
Krishnaswamy et al. (2000) conducted laboratory model tests
on geocell-supported embankments. The embankment was con-
structed above a layer of geocell on top of a soft clay bed with
600 mm thickness and the unit weight of 17 kN/m3. Moreover, the
friction angle, cohesion, and Young’s modulus of the clay were 0 ,
10, and 200 kPa, respectively. The height and secant modulus of the
geocell were 100 mm and 160 kN/m, respectively. Above the geocell
layer, half of the embankment was constructed using clayey sand
(3) with unit weight, cohesion, and friction angle of 19 kN/m3, 10 kPa,
and 30 , respectively. The schematic view of the model embank-
ment chosen for verification is illustrated in Fig. 4.
To validate the numerical model, the geocell-reinforced mat-
tress is modeled as a beam. The Young’s modulus of the unrein-
forced soil is 382, and thus the Young’s modulus of the geocell
reinforced soil was calculated as 42 MPa from the equivalent
stiffness of geocell encased soil. In the analysis, the friction angle
and adhesion of the soilefoundation beam interface are assumed to
be 2/3f and 2/3c, respectively. A uniform settlement is applied on
the surface of the embankment by applying equal vertical dis-
placement at all of the nodes on the crest of the embankment. The
comparison between experimental and numerical results is dem-
onstrated in Fig. 5. As seen, there is generally a good agreement
between experimental and numerical results. As observed, at
higher pressures, the values of slope lateral deformation and sur-
face heave in numerical analysis are greater than those of exper-
imental data. This may be due to the fact that in the laboratory tests,
the tendency of the embankment to the lateral deformation de-
(4)
creases due to the side friction especially at higher pressures. In
 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
Fig. 6. Comparison of numerical results with experimental data of El Sawwaf (2007).
addition, in numerical analysis, the clay soil was assumed to be
elastic-perfectly plastic and thus the stiffness of the clay soil was
underestimated.
3.4.2. Strip footing on geogrid-reinforced sand over a soft clay slope
El Sawwaf (2007) conducted laboratory model tests to study the
behavior of footing constructed on geogrid reinforced sand. In this
test, a soft clay bed of 350 mm thickness and the unit weight of
15.84 kN/m3was used. Moreover, the friction angle, cohesion, and
Young’s modulus for the foundation clay were 5 , 25 kPa, and
1000 kPa, respectively. In addition, the thickness, density, friction
angle, and Young’s modulus of the replaced sand were 112.8 mm,
18.9 kN/m3, 40 , and 40,000 kPa, respectively. Also, the placement
depth, length, vertical spacing, and number of the geogrid layers
were 18.75 mm, 375 mm, 18.75 mm, and two layers, respectively. In
this verification, beam elements with assigning a moment of inertia
to the beam are used to model geogrid reinforcements. It is noted
that the value of geogrid thickness was not specified by El Sawwaf
(2007). In general, the geogrid thickness varies from 1 mm to 3 mm.
Thus, h ¼ 1 and 3 mm were considered as beam thickness to vali-
date the numerical data. A comparison between the experimental
and numerical model is shown in Fig. 6. As observed, there is a good
compatibility between the experimental and numerical data. Based
on the obtained results, a decrease of geocell thickness from 3 mm
to 1 mm leads to decreasing the maximum bending moment from
0.007 kN m/m to 0.0011 kN m/m. In this case, the influence of
Fig. 7. Effect of geocell placement depth. (a) sandy slope (b) clayey slope.
27
bending stiffness becomes practically negligible and beam rein-
forced bed behaves as geogrid reinforcement.
4. Parametric analyses
A series of numerical analyses have been performed to inves-
tigate the influence of geocell reinforcement on the factor of safety
and critical failure surface of slopes. The varying parameters con-
sidered in the analyses are placement depth of the first geocell layer
from top of the slope (u), number of geocell layers (N), total rein-
forcement zone (dr), geocell length (L), geocell thickness (h), and
geocell secant modulus (M). In addition, the effect of the slope
angle (a), soil shear properties, and soil compaction is studied. To
simplify the representations of results, some of these parameters
have been expressed in non-dimensional terms with respect to
the slope height: u/H ¼ depth ratio for the first reinforcement layer,
dr/H ¼ reinforced zone ratio, and L/H ¼ geocell length ratio. The
factor of safety of geocell reinforced slopes is defined with a non-
dimensional parameter called improvement factor (IF) given by:
FOSðreinforcedÞ
IF ¼ (5)
FOSðunreinforcedÞ
where FOS(reinforced)and FOS(unreinforced)are factors of safety for
reinforced and unreinforced slopes, respectively.
4.1. Effect of the depth of the first geocell layer
Fig. 7 shows the variation of IF with u/H of geocell reinforced
slope. As seen, using geocell reinforcement increases the factor of
safety of the slope. This is because the geocell-reinforcement can
provide vertical stress distribution, bending resistance, and tensile
strength. For example, the slip surface, displacement vector and
geocell forces for sandy slope are shown in Fig. 8. As observed, the
geocell reinforcement acts like a wide slab and thus it can control
the failure surface from development and the slip failure appears
only in the upper zone. In addition, the tensile force in the geocell
layer that develops as a result of the interfacial shearing resistance
along the length of the reinforcement improves the factor of safety
and lateral deformation of slope. Also, the Young’s modulus and the
height of the geocell layer contribute to the flexural behavior of
the foundation beam, which is beneficial to reduce the geocell
deformation.
The shear strain values at the top and bottom of the geocell
mattress along the normalized geocell length (x/L) is demonstrated
28 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
Fig. 8. Slip surface and displacement vector for sandy slope and a ¼ 30 . (a) unreinforced slope (b) reinforced slope.
in Fig. 9. As expected, due to the load dispersion effects of the
geocell layer, the shear strain values at the bottom of geocellesoil
interface considerably decrease. This clearly shows that geocell
layer tends to behave as a slab which can redistribute stresses over
a larger area. Therefore, the zone of distribution of stress at the
bottom of geocell layer increases and thus the intensity of trans-
mitted stresses decreases.
Fig. 10 shows that geocell layer considerably decreases the lat-
eral displacement and shear strain values along the slope face,
especially in the lower zone of the geocell placement. Based on the
obtained results, the location of the maximum lateral deformation
of the slope is different for unreinforced and reinforced cases. For
reinforced slope, the maximum lateral displacement occurs at the
location of geocell placement (0.6H). In this case, at the bottom of
geocell mattress the resistance to the lateral movement of the soil
mass increases and thus the lateral displacement of the slope de-
creases. Therefore, for reinforced slope, the location of maximum
lateral displacement is affected by the placement depth of geocell
layer. On the other hand, for unreinforced slope, the maximum
lateral displacement occurs at about 0.8 times the slope height from
its top.
Fig. 8 shows that the performance improvement increases when
the placement depth of geocell mattress (u) increases and there-
after it tends to decrease with further increase in placement depth.
For instance, for N ¼ 1 and sandy slope, an increase of the
Fig. 9. Shear strain distribution on top and bottom of the geocell reinforcement.
placement depth ratio from 0.1 to 0.6 results in 25% increase of the
improvement factor. On the other side, by increasing u/H from 0.6
to 1.0, the IF value decreases by about 25%. By increasing the geocell
placement depth, the equivalent stiffness of geocell encased soil
and interfacial shearing resistance along the length of the rein-
forcement increase with the normal stress at the level of geocell
layer. Therefore, the tensile strength and bending moment of geo-
cell layer increases. When geocell layer is placed at much lower
depth from the slope crest (u/H ¼ 1), both lateral and vertical soil
displacements increase. In this case, geocell layer is located out of
the effective zone and thus the reinforced slope behaves as an
unreinforced slope. Moreover, for geocell reinforcement located at
the upper height of the slope, the overburden pressure is not suf-
ficient to mobilize enough frictional and adhesion resistance at the
geocellesoil interface. In this case, the location of critical failure
surface was found at the bottom of the geocell mattress.
There is an effective placement depth of geocell layer which
contributes higher factors of safety. Based on the obtained results,
effective placement depths are 0.6H and 0.4H for sandy and clayey
slope, respectively. Similar results have been observed for two
geocell layers as shown in Fig. 11. As illustrated, there is an optimum
value of dr/H which maximum benefit of the geocell reinforcements
is achieved. For sandy slope, the IF value increases with increasing
dr/H to approximately a maximum value of 0.6H and thereafter, the
IF value decreases. For clayey slopes, the optimal reinforcement
zone is slightly above the middle of the slope.
4.2. Effect of the number of geocell layers
Fig. 12 demonstrates the variation of IF with the number of
geocell layers, N. It is noted that for N ¼ 3, the second geocell layer
was placed at the middle of first and third geocell reinforcements.
As expected, for a given u/H value, the IF value increases with
increasing the number of geocell layers. This is because larger
contact area and more mobilization of frictional and adhesional
resistance at geocellesoil interfaces are provided. Consequently,
larger horizontal shear stresses are mobilized in the soil in front of
the slip surface and thus the horizontal movement of soil is
restricted by geocell layers. As shown in Fig. 12, the improvement
rate of the factor of safety with number of layers is mostly related to
the placement depth of the first geocell layer which restrains the
failure surface from developing. This proves that the rigidity of
geocell mattress arrests the potential failure planes and re-
distributes the loads more uniformly. In this case, the first geocell
 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34 29

Fig. 10. Effect of geocell reinforcement on sandy slope. (a) slope lateral displacement (b) shear strain along the slope face.

layer effectively bridges the load between the other geocell layers
and leads to higher load transition into the deeper regions. The
performance of other geocell reinforcement layers is more related
to improve the lateral deformation of the slope. In addition, the first
geocell layer considerably decreases the lateral displacement and
shear strain of the slope face. Therefore, the first geocell layer de-
velops more bending moment against failure and shear deforma-
tion in the soil mass.
4.3. Effect of the geocell characteristics
In this section, different geocell characteristics like length,
thickness and Young’s modulus of geocell reinforcement are dis-
cussed in detail. Fig. 13 indicates the variation IF with geocell
length. As expected, the IF value increases with increasing the
geocell layer length. The results show that, for a ¼ 60 , the increase
in the factor of safety is significant up to a value of L/H ¼ 2, and after
that, the contribution of increasing geocell layer length on factor of
safety becomes practically negligible. This is because for L/H > 2,
a part of geocell length behind the failure surface is located out
of the most effective zone and thus the strength of geocell is
not completely mobilized at the soilegeocell interface. On the
other side, for slope with a ¼ 30 , the increase of geocell length up
to L/H ¼ 1.2, the influence of geocell reinforcement on factor of
safety is negligible. For example, for N ¼ 2 and a ¼ 30 , by
increasing L/H from 0.6 to 1.2 results in 2% increase in the IF value,
whereas increasing L/H from 1.2 to 2 increases the IF value by about
15%. This is because by decreasing the slope angle, the potential
failure volume of the slope becomes larger. Thus, for geocell length
ratio lower than L/H ¼ 1.2, the slip surface is not intersected by
geocell layer. On the other hand, by increasing the slope angle, the
critical failure surface will be shallower and thus it can lead to
intersection with geocell layers.
The effect of slope angle on the critical failure surface location and
mobilized forces in geocell layer is shown in Fig. 14. For a ¼ 30 , the
maximum bending moment in geocell layer is negative, and thus
leads to higher lateral deformation of the slope. This phenomenon
may be explained by the theory presented in Section 2. By decreasing
the length of geocell mattress, the interfacial shearing resistance at
the top and bottom of the geocell decreases and thus the mobilized
tensile strength of the geocell layer decreases. Therefore, as
explained in Section 2, the resisting moment (including the tensile
force within the beam and the lateral confining force of soil particles
within cells) is not sufficient to overcome the driving moment.
Therefore, the slope lateral displacement and also geocell deforma-
tion increase. In addition, for a ¼ 30 and L/H ¼ 0.6, considering
geocell axial force versus geocell displacement shows that the geo-
cell reinforced slope is subjected to pull-out failure. Based on the

Fig. 11. Variations of IF with normalized geocell reinforcement zone. (a) sandy slope (b) clayey slope.
30 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
Fig. 12. Variations of IF with number of geocell layers. (a) sandy slope (b) clayey slope.
obtained results, for a pull-out failure, the line of maximum tension is
usually in front of the slip surface. This phenomenon is similar to that
obtained by Wei and Cheng (2010) for soil nailed slope. The concept
of effective length of reinforcement comes from the fact that only the
portion of reinforcement which lies within the failure zone. In this
zone, the tensile strength and also bending moment of the geocell
reinforcement are highly mobilized. Some additional length beyond
the shear zone is required to act as anchor within the soil mass. The
additional length of reinforcement beyond the sum of length of shear
and anchorage zones will be ineffective and therefore will not result
in additional improvement in the IF value.
Fig. 15(a) presents the variation of IF with thickness of geocell
mattress. As expected, by increasing the geocell thickness, the IF
value increases. With increasing the thickness, the moment of
inertia and hence the bending rigidity of the geocell mattress in-
creases. Thus geocell layer tends to behave as a deep beam which
can decrease the geocell deformation and also the slope lateral
displacement. On the other hand, a smaller height of geocell mat-
tress leads to a lower bending rigidity as it behaves like a shallow
beam that is deflected under loading. In this case, the influence of
geocell bending stiffness becomes practically negligible and the
geocell reinforced bed behaves as a planar reinforcement. The effect
of geocell stiffness was also investigated by using various secant
moduli of 100, 150, 200, and 500 kN/m. As noted, the Young’s
modulus of geocell reinforced soil was obtained from the
Fig. 13. Variations of IF with geocell layer length for clayey slope.
equivalent stiffness of geocell encased soil. The influence of geocell
elastic modulus on the slope behavior and geocell bending moment
is shown in Fig. 15(b). As expected, the variation of IF values for
geocell reinforced slope depends on the elastic modulus of the
geocell. Increasing the elastic modulus of geocell provides a higher
rigidity for the beam and thus it reduces the slope lateral defor-
mation. In addition, decreasing the geocell layer stiffness allows
much more strain for the same load.
4.4. Effect of the shear strength properties
In this section, to study the effect of the shear strength prop-
erties, two different soil properties of c ¼ 2 kPa and f ¼ 30 for
a sandy soil and c ¼ 20 kPa and f ¼ 10 for a clayey soil are con-
sidered. Other soil parameters such as density and Young’s mod-
ulus are kept constant as 20 kN/m3and 25 MPa, respectively. Thus,
in this case, the effect of failure surface location on the slope sta-
bility of geocell reinforced slope could be investigated. It is noted
that this approach was used by others, for example, Cheng et al.
(2007) and Wei and Cheng (2009, 2010). As expected, for sandy
soil slope, the critical failure surface is shallow and the upper end of
the critical surface is very close to the slope crest. On the other
hand, for clayey slope, the critical failure surface is deep and the
upper end of the critical slip surface is far away from the slope crest.
The variation of IF value for sandy and clayey soil slopes is depicted
in Fig. 16. As seen, using geocell reinforcements in clayey slope
significantly increases the factor of safety. For instance, for a ¼ 60 ,
using three geocell layers in the effective zone leads to increase in
the factor of safety from 0.76 to 1.28. The reason is that by
increasing the soil cohesion, the potential failure volume of the
slope becomes larger. Therefore, larger contact area and more
mobilization of frictional and adhesional resistance at geocellesoil
interface occur and thus geocell axial force increases. Besides,
because of more lateral deformation of clayey slope, larger geocell
bending moment is developed. Similar results were observed by
Latha et al. (2006) who reported that the use of clay as fill material
inside geocells will significantly improved the failure surcharge
pressure of embankments.
Based on the obtained results, the effective placement of geocell
reinforcements is found to be between the middle of slope and the
middle of critical failure surface of unreinforced slope. By
decreasing the friction angle or increasing the cohesion, the po-
tential failure volume of the slope becomes larger. Therefore, the
middle of the critical failure surface is located slightly toward the
 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34 31

Fig. 14. Slip surface and geocell forces for clayey slope and L/H ¼ 0.6. (a) a ¼ 60 (b) a ¼ 30

crest of the slope and thus the effective placement of reinforcement
will be slightly away from the middle of the slope. As shown in
Fig. 16, the effective placement depth for the clayey and sandy slope
is about 0.4H and 0.6H, respectively.
4.5. Effect of soil compaction on geocell reinforced slope
During the construction of the slope, confining pressures in
lower layers increase. Thus at the end of construction, the lower
part of the slope is subjected to a higher confining pressure. This
difference in confining pressures at different elevations of the slope
could have a very important effect on the performance of the
reinforced slope. To study the effect of the soil compaction in the
numerical simulations, the procedure described by Hatami and
Bathurst (2005, 2006) was used. In their study, the backfill com-
paction during construction of reinforced soil walls was simulated
by applying a uniform vertical stress to the entire surface of each
new soil layer before solving the model to equilibrium. Comparing
between predicted and measured wall response, they have deter-
mined that the values of the vertical stress are equal to 8 kPa and
16 kPa for sand with Young’s modulus of 40 MPa and 80 MPa,
respectively. To include the effect of confining pressure on the soil
modulus during construction, the modified stress-dependent hy-
perbolic model proposed by Duncan et al. (1980) was introduced
into the FLAC MohreCoulomb material model. The stress-
dependent modulus is calculated as:

Fig. 15. Effect of geocell characteristics. (a) geocell thickness and (b) secant modulus of the geocell material.

Fig. 16. Variations of IF with different shear strength properties. (a) a ¼ 30 (b) a ¼ 60
32 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34

Fig. 17. Effect of soil compaction on geocell reinforced slope. (a) Max geocell tensile force (b) Max geocell bending moment.

 2  n deformation of the structure. However, it is difficult to define an

Rf ð1  sin fÞðs1  s3 Þ s
Et ¼ 1 Ke $pa 3 (6) accurate value of equivalent loading stress to simulate the real
2c$cos f þ 2s3 sin f pa
compaction in calculations. An inaccurate estimation of this stress
where s1 ¼ the vertical (overburden) pressure; s3 ¼ the confining can induce an overestimation of the slope deformation.
pressure; Rf ¼ the failure ratio; Ke and n ¼ the Young’s modulus
number and modulus exponent, respectively; pa ¼ atmospheric 5. Conclusions
pressure; f and c ¼ friction angle and cohesion of the soil,
respectively. In this section, the sand has Young’s modulus of The purpose of this paper is to use a beam model to simulate the
40 MPa, and so vertical stress of 8 kPa has been used as equivalent geocell layer behavior as a flexible slab foundation which can carry
loading stress. The values of Ke, n and Rf for the sand used in this both bending moment and membrane stresses for stability analysis
section are 500, 0.55, and 0.7, respectively as obtained from labo- of geocell reinforced slopes. Based on obtained results from this
ratory triaxial tests conducted by Abdelouhab et al. (2011). study, the following conclusions can be drawn:
Fig. 17 shows the influence of soil compaction on the maximum
tensile force and bending moment in the geocell reinforced slope. - Geocell reinforcements were found to be advantageous in
The results show that the soil compaction leads to a significant increasing the factor of safety and reducing the lateral de-
increase in the maximum mobilized tension force and bending formations of slopes due to the tensile strength and bending
moment along geocell layer. This behavior is related to the vertical moment of geocell reinforcement.
induced stress due to soil compaction which increases the inter- - Geocell reinforcement acts like a wide slab and it can restrain
facial shearing resistance along the length of geocell. In addition, the failure surface from developing and redistribute the loads
the performance improvement of soil compaction increases when over a much wider area.
the placement depth of geocell mattress increases. The reason is - By increasing the geocell placement depth, the equivalent
that the lower part of slope has a higher confining pressure and stiffness of geocell encased soil and interfacial shearing
therefore the mobilized tensile strength and bending moment of resistance along the length of the reinforcement increases with
geocell increase. Table 2 presents the effect of soil compaction on the normal stress at the level of the reinforcement. Therefore,
the FOS value and lateral displacement of the slope. Due to the soil tensile strength and bending moment of the geocell rein-
compaction, the FOS value for reinforced slope increases by about forcement increases.
7%, but did not change for unreinforced slope. In addition, higher - For reinforced slope, the location of maximum lateral dis-
lateral movements were found for the slope without compaction. placement is affected by the placement depth of geocell
These results infer that soil compaction should be considered in reinforcement.
numerical modeling in order to appraise with accuracy the - The improvement rate of the factor of safety with number of
geocell layers is mostly related to the placement depth of the
Table 2 first geocell layer. In this case, the first geocell layer effectively
Influence of soil compaction on geocell reinforced slope. bridges the load between the other geocell layers, leading to
Case FOS Max slope Max geocell Max geocell higher load transition into the deeper regions.
displacement tensile force bending - By decreasing the length of geocell mattress, the interfacial
(cm) (kN/m) moment shearing resistance at the top and bottom of the geocell de-
(kN m/m) creases and so, the mobilized tensile strength of the geocell
Unreinforced slope 1.24 10.2 e e decreases. Therefore, the resisting moment (including the
(without compaction)
tensile force within the beam and the lateral confining force of
Unreinforced slope 1.24 9 e e
(with compaction) soil particles within cells) is not sufficient to overcome the
Reinforced slope 1.55 6.5 20 3.2 driving moment.
(without compaction) - Soil compaction leads to a significant increase in the maximum
Reinforced slope 1.66 4.1 25.5 5.3 mobilized tension force and bending moment along geocell
(with compaction)
layer. This behavior is related to the vertical induced stress due
 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34
to soil compaction, which increases the interfacial shearing
resistance along the length of the reinforcement.
- The effective placement of geocell layers is found to be be-
tween the middle of slope and the middle of critical failure
surface of the unreinforced slope. By decreasing the friction
angle or increasing the cohesion the potential failure volume of
the slope becomes larger. Therefore, the effective placement of
reinforcement will be slightly away from the middle of the
slope. The effective placement depth for the clayey and sandy
slope is about 0.4H and 0.6H, respectively.
Further research is required to validate the numerical data with
full-scale and/or field test data to apply research findings of this
study to practical situations. In addition, anisotropic behavior of
the geocell reinforced soil is of interest for future research.
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Glossary
T: tension force of the geocell reinforcement
T(x): tension force of the cell wall
Mg: bending moment of the geocell reinforcement
Q: shear force of the geocell reinforcement
S: shear force acting on the failure surface
N: normal force acting on the failure surface
q(y): load density acting on super-face of geocell
P(y): subgrade reaction at bottom of geocell
Ke: Young’s modulus parameter of the unreinforced soil
s3: horizontal stress at the mid height of the geocell layer
ci: adhesion between geocell and soil
fi: friction angle between geocell and soil
Fn: normal force at the interface
kn: normal stiffness of the interface
ks: shear stiffness of the interface
IF: improvement factor of safety
H: slope height
g: unit weight of soil
E: Young’s modulus of soil
G: shear modulus of soil
Rf: failure ratio
st(x): interface resistance at top of geocell
sb(x): interface resistance at bottom of geocell
h: geocell thickness
A: cross-sectional area of beam element
I: second moment of area
Eg: equivalent stiffness of geocell reinforced soil
34 I. Mehdipour et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 37 (2013) 23e34

M: secant modulus of the geocell material c: cohesion of soil

u: placement depth of the first geocell layer a: slope angle
N: number of geocell layers FOS(reinforced): factors of safety for reinforced slope
L: geocell length FOS(unreinforced): factors of safety for unreinforced slope
dr: reinforcement zone gg: density of beam
Fy(comp.): compressive yield strength of beam element K: bulk modulus of soil
Fy(tens.): tensile yield strength of beam element m: Poisson’s ratio of soil
f: friction angle of soil n: modulus exponent