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Effect of geosynthetic reinforcement creep on the long term performance of an

embankment

M. R. Karim1, C. T. Gnanendran2 and S-C. R. Lo3

1
PhD candidate, School of Engineering and Information Technology,
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UNSW@ADFA, ACT- 2600, Australia. Email: m.karim@adfa.edu.au

2
Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering and Information Technology,
UNSW@ADFA, ACT-2600, Australia. Email: r.gnanendran@adfa.edu.au
3
Associate Professor, School of Engineering and Information Technology,
UNSW@ADFA, ACT - 2600, Australia. Email: r.lo@adfa.edu.au

ABSTRACT
Geo-synthetic reinforcements are often used to enhance the stability of
geotechnical structures such as embankments. These geosynthetic polymers often
show significant creep deformational behaviour. In the short-term performance of a
geotechnical structure, it may not play a significant role. However, while dealing
with the long term behaviour, it is necessary to investigate its effect. In this paper
two plane strain fully coupled finite element analysis have been conducted; one with
and the other without taking into account of the creep behaviour of geosynthetics. A
well documented field case of Leneghans embankment (Geogrid improved wide
embankment constructed near Sydney, Australia in 1990s) have been used for this
purpose.
It is evident from the analyses that though the geosynthetic reinforcements
may play a vital role in the performance/stability of an embankment in the early days
(during and after construction), its contribution may become insignificant with time
and the creep of geo-synthetic may not play a significant role in the long term
stability.

INTRODUCTION
As pointed out by many researchers (Zhang and Moore 1997; Perkins 2000;
Voskamp and Vliet 2001; Li and Rowe 2008; Yeo 2010), creep can be a significant
contributor to geosynthetic reinforcement’s strains. As the effect of creep usually
become evident after relatively longer period of time, in the short-term performance
of a geotechnical structure, it may not play a significant role. However, when we are
dealing with the long term performance of a geotechnical structure, the effect of
creep may not be neglected.

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To investigate this the performance of Leneghans embankment (details

provided in the next section) have been modelled using two dimensional (2D) fully
coupled plane strain finite element (FE) analyses. Two different analyses have been
conducted. In one analysis, the geosynthetic used in the embankment has been
modelled as elastic bar elements, i.e., with out taking the creep behaviour of
geosynthetic into consideration and in the second one the creep behaviour of
geosynthetic has been modelled. All the other modelling aspects of the embankment
have been kept the same. The results from the two different analyses have been
compared.
LENEGHANS EMBANKMENT
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Lo et al. (2008) and Karim et al. (2011) presented detailed description of Leneghans
embankment in terms of construction sequence, material parameters and
instrumentations. A brief description is presented here.
Leneghans embankment was constructed in 1990s as a part of Sydney-
Newcastle highway extension project and is located about 150 km north of Sydney,
Australia. The embankment is about 32 m wide at the crest and 60 m wide at the
bottom. The embankment was constructed beside an old embankment which acted as
a berm for the new construction. The final construction height of the embankment
was reduced level (RL) +5.5 m. The natural ground surface at the construction site
varied between RL +0.50 to +0.90 m and the ground water table fluctuated between
RL +0.55 to +1.17 m with an average value of +0.75 m. The foundation soil
consisted of about 16.5 m thick soft clay layer which was underlain by shale
bedrock.
As the foundation layers were soft and compressible, a number of measures
were taken to enhance stability. It included an observational approach with extensive
instrumentation, stagged construction, use of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) to
accelerate consolidation, wide stabilizing berm, use of light weight fill materials,
surcharging followed by removal of it and also the use of geogrid reinforcements.
NUMERICAL MODELLING
A brief description of how different aspects of the embankment were modelled is
presented here.
Foundation soil. The foundation soil in the field showed significant creep or time
dependent behaviour (Lo, Mak et al. 2008; Karim, Gnanendran et al. 2010), thus, an
elastoplastic model was considered inadequate to describe its behaviour. An elastic
viscoplastic (EVP) model proposed by Karim et al. (2011) was used for this study.
The model requires the 6 of the modified Cam clay (MCC) parameters and the creep
coefficient for the complete description of stress-strain behaviour of soil. In the
model, the creep coefficient can be treated either as a constant or as a variable.
Following Karim et al. (2011) a variable creep coefficient was chosen for this study.
The creep coefficient was allowed to vary according to the equation
. Here, is the creep coefficient at any time, and
are positive constants, is the “creep-inclusive” preconsolidation pressure, as

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explained in Kutter and Sathialingham (1992) which can be calculated using the
equation and is the “creep-exclusive” preconsolidation

pressure which can be calculated using the MCC equation . In these

equations is the current void ratio of soil, is the void ratio at the unit mean
normal effective stress on the normal consolidation line, and are the MCC
compression and recompression indices respectively, is the mean normal effective
stress and is the deviatoric stress.
The two creep function coefficients were taken to be 0.085 and
0.027 after Karim et al. (2010) for Leneghans embankment foundation soil. The
other material parameters used for modelling the foundation soil are listed in Table 1
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along with the permeability coefficients required for a coupled analysis.

Permeability of soil and the PVDs. The permeability of soil in the analyses was
allowed to vary with void ratio according to the Taylor’s (1942) equation, log
log , where, is the reference permeability at the reference void ratio of
and is the slope of the graph (a semi-log graph with plotted in a log
scale on the vertical axis).
The use of PVDs make the estimation of permeability difficult in a plane
strain analysis. An equivalent horizontal permeability that can take into account of
the disturbed zone permeability because of the installation of the PVDs and the
undisturbed zone permeability was used for this analysis. To obtain the plane strain
equivalent horizontal permeability Hird’s (1992) matching procedure was adopted.
The field vertical permeability was estimated to be 2.6 times the laboratory vertical
permeability values. More details on the estimation of permeability can be found in
Karim et al. (2011).
Embankment fill. Two different types of materials were used for embankment
construction - light weight fly ash (for the core of the embankment) and ordinary fill
materials (for the berm section and surcharging). Elastoplastic Mohr-Coulomb model
was used for their modelling. Stress dependent stiffness characteristics of the fill
materials were also incorporated in the analysis by using the Duncan and Chang
(1970) equation which allows the Young’s modulus to vary with stress as
1 where, . Here, is the Young’s
modulus, is the major principal stress, is the minor principal stress, is the
atmospheric pressure, is the failure ratio- the value of which ranges between 0.75
and 0.85, is the cohesion of the soil, and and are two constants. The values of
the parameters used for the analyses can be found in Table 2.
Geosynthetics. As mentioned before two different fully coupled 2D plane strain
analyses have been carried out. The two analyses differ only in the modelling of the
geogrid. The first one (Geo_creep here) is conducted incorporating the creep
behaviour of geosynthetic in the analysis and is discussed next.
A number of models have been proposed in the literature to capture the creep
behaviour of geosynthetic polymers. However, due to the lack of experimental data

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on that particular lot of geosynthetics ( Paralink 200), a much simpler approach was
taken in this paper.
As suggested by many researchers, the plot of geosynthetic strain vs. log
(time) can be treated as a straight line (Yeo 2010). A similar approach was followed
in this paper. Based on manufacturer-provided data, the stiffness of the geosynthetic
was allowed to be halved in 75 years. Time variations in the stiffness (shown in
Figure 1) of the geosynthetics were implemented in the source code of AFENA and
Table 1. MCC material parameters with permeability coefficients for the
foundation soil
Vertical perm.
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coefficients
RL (m) M λ κ υ (kPa)

(m/d)

+0.3 to -2.8 0.33 0.066 2.877 3.0E-5 152.9

-2.8 to -7.8 0.38 0.076 3.291 1.5E-5 122.4

1.113 0.3 1.78 0.83
-7.8 to -10 0.38 0.076 3.291 1.5E-5 52.99

-10 to -16 0.33 0.066 2.877 1.5E-5 57.68*

*
the slope of below RL -10 m increases 6.05 kPa/m

Table 2. Properties of embankment fill materials

Parameter (unit) Light weight fly ash Ordinary fill

c (kPa) 5.0 5.0

40° 28°
Properties of
7° 4°
fill material
γ (kN/m3) 14.0 20.0

ν 0.3 0.3

Duncan and k 250 250

Cheng (1970)
Equation n 0.5 0.5

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100 100

Stiffness (% of initial stiffness)

80 80

60 60
Stiffness of geosynthetics
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40 40

1 10 100 1000 10000 100000

Time (days)

Figure 1. Time variations in geosynthetic stiffness according to manufacturer-

provided data

Figure 2. FE geometry used for the coupled analysis with drainage boundary

the Geo_creep analysis was carried out. From the literature provided by the
manufacturer, the initial axial stiffness of the geogrid reinforcement was taken to be J =
1760 kN/m at a strain level of 5% and the tensile strength was taken to be 125 kN/m.
A benchmark analysis was also conducted with no creep behaviour in the
geosynthetics to demonstrate the difference that the creep in geosynthetics will make
in the analysis. In this case the geosynthetics were modelled as linear elastic bar
elements with the above mentioned initial properties. The FE geometry used for the
analyses is presented in Figure 2.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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Settlement profiles. Figures 3 and 4 present the settlement profiles predicted by the
Geo_creep analysis as well as the field-measured values and the predictions from the
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

0 0

0.2 0.2
Settlement (m)

0.4 0.4
Field 76 days
Field 159 days
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Field 201 days

Benchmark analysis 76 days
0.6 Benchmark analysis 159 days 0.6
Benchmark analysis 201 days
Geo_creep 76 days
Geo_creep 159 days
Geo_creep 201 days
0.8 0.8

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Distance from the toe (m)

Figure 3. Comparison of measured and predicted settlement profiles at

76, 159 and 201 days
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0 0
Settlement (m)

1 1

Field 1433 days

2 Field 2310 days 2
Benchmark analysis 1433 days
Benchmark analysis 2310 days
Geo_creep 1433 days
Geo_creep 2310 days

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Distance from the toe (m)

Figure 4. Comparison of measured and predicted settlement profiles at

1433 and 2310 days

benchmark analysis. It can be seen in these figures that the decreases in the stiffness
of the geosynthetic with time because of creep did not significantly affect the vertical
displacement profiles. One explanation behind it is that, the creep is a very slow
process and by the time it started to take effect, the foundation soil gained enough
strength (because of consolidation) and the contribution of the geosynthetics towards

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the embankment stability became very small. Thus, the effect of the creep was
nullified. Thus, the geosynthetic creep did not play a significant role in the stability
or performance of the Leneghans embankment in terms of vertical settlement
behaviour. This is also in line with the findings of Chai et al. (2002)
Lateral displacement profiles. Figure 5 presents the lateral displacement
profiles predicted by the benchmark and Geo_creep analyses at the junction of the
old and the new embankment (inclinometer I2.2). The field measured values are also
presented there.
It is evident from the figure that, though the creep in geosynthetic affected the
predictions in the top few meters up to 360 days since the start of construction, at
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lower depths and also at later periods (both in higher and lower depths) its
contribution towards the lateral displacements were insignificant.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

0 0

-5 -5
RL (m)

-10
-10

Field 180 days

-15
Field 367 days -15
Field 547 days
Benchmark analysis 280 days
Benchmark analysis 366 days
Benchmark analysis 547 days
Geo_creep 280 days
Geo_creep 366 days
-20
Geo_creep 547 days -20

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Lateral displacement at I2.2 (mm)

Figure 5. Predicted and measured lateral displacement profiles at the

intersection of the new and the existing embankments (I2.2)
Excess pwps. Figures 6 and 7 present the excess pwp predictions from the
Geo_creep and the benchmark analyses along with the field-measured values. No
significant differences were noticed between the results from the two analyses. Thus
the creep in geosynthetic did not significantly affect the generation and dissipation of
the excess pwp in the case of Leneghans embankment.

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Geosynthetic strains. Figure 8 presents the measured and predicted maximum

geosynthetics strains from the two different analyses. The shape of the time-strain
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
12 12

Field P2.4
Field P2.6
Benchmark analysis P2.4
Benchmark analysis P2.6
Geo_creep P2.4
Excess pwp (m head)

8 Geo_creep P2.6 8
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4 4

0 0

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Time (day)
Figure 6. Comparison of predicted and recorded excess pwps at
piezometers P2.4 and 2.6
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
8 8
Field P2.7
Field P1.8
Field P2.8
Benchmark analysis P2.7
6 6
Benchmark analysis P2.8
Excess pwp (m head)

Geo_creep P2.7
Geo_creep P2.8

4 4

2 2

0 0

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Time (day)

Figure 7. Comparison of predicted and recorded excess pwps at

piezometers P2.7, 1.8 and 2.8

graph was predicted with reasonable accuracy. The change in construction rate was
well reflected in Figure 8 (i.e., at around 50 and 180 days). It can be seen from the
figure that, in the early stages, the Geo_creep analysis predicted higher maximum
strain than the benchmark analysis and this was more close to the field measured
values. This is probably because of the loss of stiffness during the early days of

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construction (when the soil had relatively less strength) and indicates that the
geosynthetics may have played, some role in stabilising the embankment. However,
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
0 0

Field measured values

M axim um geosynthetic strain (% )

Benchmark analysis
Geo_creep analysis

-0.4 -0.4
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-0.8 -0.8

-1.2 -1.2

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Time (day)

Figure 8. Measured and predicted maximum geotextile

as the days progressed, the over prediction started to disappear and, at the end of
construction, the two lines matched each other. As the soil continually gained more
strength because of the consolidation, there was less contribution of the
geosynthetics towards the stability of the embankment. Thus, it can be said that creep
in the geosynthetics did not play a significant role in the long term performance of
the embankment. However, the performance of the geosynthetics was better
predicted with the incorporation of the creep.
CONCLUSIONS
Two fully coupled 2D plane strain FE analyses have been carried out to investigate
the effect of creep in geosynthetics in the performance of Leneghans embankment.
The results showed that, the creep in geosynthetic did not significantly alter the
predictions of vertical and lateral deformation as well as the excess pwp. The reason
behind it may be the fact that the effect of creep takes time to show and over time the
embankment foundation gained more strength and thus the effect of creep was
insignificant. However, the performance of the geosynthetic itself were better
predicted by the incorporation of creep behaviour into the FE analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The first author was financially supported by the University of New South Wales at
Australian Defence Force Academy while conducting his PhD research. The
generous support provided by the NCI National Facility, Australia, towards the third
author towards this research project is gratefully acknowledged. Authors are also

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grateful to RTA, New South Wales, Australia for their generous support. The
opinions expressed in this paper, however, are solely those of the authors.

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