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Interaction between assembled 3D honeycomb cells produced from high

density polyethylene and a cohesionless soil

Article  in  Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites · June 2012

DOI: 10.1177/0731684412447529

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Article
Journal of Reinforced Plastics
and Composites

Interaction between assembled 31(12) 828–836

! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0731684412447529
high density polyethylene and a jrp.sagepub.com

cohesionless soil

Ayhan Gurbuz and Halit Cenan Mertol

Abstract
Assembled 3D high-density polyethylene honeycomb cells, providing confinement to arrest spreading of the soil in cells
and creating relatively stiff bed that redistributes footing pressure over wider area, were used in the present study to
enhance load-carrying capacity and to reduce settlement of base materials under a foundation. The effects of various test
parameters including width, height, number of layers of the 3D honeycomb cells, vertical distance between layers of the
cells and depth of stress zone of the foundation were studied. The test results indicated that considerable improvement
in the load-carrying capacity (ffi3.0) and reduction in settlement of the foundation (ffi62%) were obtained with the
implementation of the single layer of the 3D cells into cohesionless soils. The optimum effective distance between two
layers of the 3D cells was 0.142 times the width of foundation, the ratio of effective width of 3D cells to the foundation
was about 4.2 and the depth of influence stress zone of the foundation was about two times the width of the foundation.

Keywords
3D honeycomb cells, polyethylene plastic, geocell, multi-layered, bearing pressure, footing settlement, interaction,
reinforcement, sand

Introduction
Various soil improvement methods including cement
injection, jet grouting and chemical grouting have
been used both to increase the bearing capacity of
weak soils and to decrease the settlement of founda-
tions under structural loads. More than 40,000 soil
improvement projects have been performed per year
at a total cost exceeding US$ 6 billion worldwide.1
Each of these methods has their own advantages and
disadvantage.2 Over the past few decades, polymer-
based materials such as geosynthetic reinforcements in
the form of geotextile and geogrid to increase the bear-
ing capacity of soil are increasingly being used.
Geosynthetic reinforcement may provide easier instal-
lations, more economical solutions and longer lifetime
than other types of bearing capacity improvement
techniques.3
In the form of a 3D-honeycomb structure, which is
named here as geocell and made with polyethylene
(high-density polyethylene: HDPE), polyester or
another polymer material, is a very effective geosyn-
thetic reinforcement type to enhance the bearing cap-
acity of soils and reduce the settlement of foundations.
Geocell provides direct confinement to arrest the lateral
spreading of the infill soil and creating relatively stiff
bed that redistributes the footing pressure over wider
area while enhancing the load-carrying capacity and
reducing the settlement4–25 worldwide in the last few
years. Based on the results of these research, it was
observed that the bearing capacity of soil is significantly
increased mainly due to confinement when geocell
reinforcement was used.
Department of Civil Engineering, Atilim University, Incek-Ankara, Turkey
Corresponding author:
Ayhan Gurbuz, Department of Civil Engineering, Atilim University,
Incek-Ankara 06836, Turkey
Email: agurbuz@atilim.edu.tr
Gurbuz and Mertol 829

While research provided plenty of useful informa- 100

tion on the effectiveness of the single layer of the
geocell-reinforced soils under different loading condi- 90

tions, none of these research, partially except Gudio 80

and Christou,8 Yoon et al.20 and Wesseloo et al.23
70
investigated the use of geocell in more than one layer.
The aim of this study was to investigate the perform- 60

Finer, (%)
ance of multi-layered geocell reinforcement on the 50
enhancement of the bearing pressure and the reduction
in the settlement of strip footing supported by medium- 40

dense sand. The effects of various test parameters 30

including width, height, number of geocell reinforce-
20
ment layers, distance between two geocell layers and
the depth of influence stress zone of the foundation 10
were studied. 0
10 1 0.1 0.01
Grain Size, (mm)
Materials and experimental
Materials Figure 1. Grain size distribution of the sand.

Sand. The soil used in this study was relatively uniform

sand with a grain size distribution varying from 0.075
to 2 mm and a specific gravity (Gs) of 2.60. The grain
size distribution of the sand determined from sieve ana-
lysis and the image obtained from scan electron micro-
scope are presented in Figures 1 and 2, respectively.
The properties of the sand, classified as poorly graded
(SP) according to the unified soil classification system,
are presented in Table 1.

3D-honeycomb plastic cells. Reinforcement used in this

study was commercially available geocell which was
produced from HDPE welded to form a 3D-honey-
comb structure as shown in Figure 3. Geocell heights
of 75 and 150 mm were used in this study. The 75 mm-
high geocell was produced by cutting 150 mm-high geo-
cell into two. The properties of the geocell used in this Figure 2. Image of sand obtained from scan electron
study are listed in Table 2. microscope (SEM).

Experimental tests Table 1. The physical properties of sand used in the study
Laboratory model tests. Laboratory tests were conducted Description Value
in a rigid testing tank having internal dimensions of
700.5 mm in length, 700.5 mm in width and 800 mm in Effective grain size, D10 (mm) 0.18
height. The sides and bottom of the testing tank was D30 (mm) 0.35
covered using 30-mm thick glossy-smooth plywood D60 (mm) 0.44
sheets. The front face of the testing tank was made of Medium grain size, D50 (mm) 0.40
a 30-mm thick Plexiglas sheet allowing the visual obser- Specific gravity, Gs 2.60
vation of deformations of sand-geocell composite Coefficient of uniformity, Cu 1.55
system. The rigidity of test box was provided using Coefficient of curvature, Cc 2.44
stiff hollow steel sections around all sides and bottom Maximum void ratio, emax 0.85
of the box to prevent undesirable deformations. The
Minimum void ratio, emin 0.47
spreader beam used to simulate strip footing was an
Internal friction angle, f (degree), 30
I-beam having bottom surface dimensions of 70 mm
at 55% relative density (Dr)
width (B) and 695 mm length (L). When the spreader
830
Figure 3. Assembled 3-D honeycomb cells produced from high
density polyethylene.
Table 2. The properties of 3D honeycomb cells used in the
study
Material type Polyethylene
Cell height, H (mm) 75 and 150
Width of one cell pocket, bg (mm) 287
Length of one cell pocket, lg (mm) 320
Density per m2 21.7
Nominal area (cm2) 460
Tensile strength at 5% (kN) 3.66
beam was located in the testing tank, 5 mm gap was
intentionally left between the ends of the spreader
beam and the testing tank to both prevent the contact
between the spreader beam and the sides of the testing
tank and create plain strain condition within test
arrangement.
Loading system, shown in Figure 4, consists of a stiff
loading frame and a hydraulic jack having 300 kN cap-
acity. The footing was loaded using the hydraulic jack
supported against the reaction frame. A load cell
having 300 kN capacity with an accuracy of 0.01%
and four linear variable displacement transducers
(LVDTs) having full ranges of 50 mm with an accuracy
of 0.01% were used to monitor the load and settle-
ment of footing during the testing. The measured values
of settlement and load were recorded automatically via
a data acquisition system. In order to obtain reliable
Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 31(12)
values, all the instruments were calibrated prior to
testing.
Preparation of model test. The sand raining technique26
was used to deposit sand into the test tank. The
height of sand raining to achieve a uniform relative
soil density of 55 was determined by performing a
series of trial tests with different heights of raining.
By considering the position of the geocell in the test
tank, the inner face of the test tank was marked.
Sand was rained from the pre-calibrated height to the
predetermined depth of the geocell layers in the test
tank and then raining was temporally ceased. After
the geocells were placed on the leveled surface of the
sand, the sand raining was released up to the footing
level. Thereafter, the test tank was lifted into loading
frame on which the spreader beam used as a strip foot-
ing was mounted.
Four LVDT were located on the footing, two at the
midpoint of both sides of the footing and two at the
ends of the footing. A load cell was placed on the load-
ing system to measure applied static load. The static
load was applied using the hydraulic jack at a rate of
1 kPa per second until the failure was obtained. The
data obtained from the load cell and the LVDTs were
recorded using a data acquisition system at every 0.1 s
intervals.
Characterization
Test parameters and testing program
The geometry of geocell-reinforced foundation system
used in this study is presented in Figure 5. The details of
the test scheme are listed in Table 3. Four different
series of tests were carried out by varying different
parameters such as the height of the geocell (H),
the width of the geocell (Bg), the distance between
layers of the geocell (d) and number of the geocell
reinforcement (N).
Test series A was conducted on unreinforced sand to
quantify the improvements due to geocell reinforce-
ment. Test series B to determine the effective width of
geocell (Bg) were performed by varying the width of the
geocell and keeping the height of the geocell (H) and
the depth to the top of the geocell layer below the
footing (u) constant. Based on the determined optimum
width of the geocell (Bg/B ¼ 8.2) in test series B, tests
series C were conducted varying the height of the geo-
cell and the distance between the layers of the geocell.
Test series D were performed varying the height of the
geocell. The effects of variable parameters on bearing
pressure and settlement of foundation were investigated
throughout all tests. The tests described in Table 3 were
repeated at least three times to both examine reliability
Gurbuz and Mertol 831

Loading Frame

LVDT’s Hydraulic Jack

Load Cell

Spreader Beam as
Strip Footing

Test Box

Figure 4. General layout test and loading system.

capacity improvement ratio at ultimate (BCIRult),

which specify the increase in the bearing pressure at
failure and the footing settlement reduction ratio
(FSRR), which presents the reduction in footing settle-
ment at selected bearing pressure values. Three param-
eters, defined in Figure 6, were calculated using the
following expressions:

qg
BCIR ¼ for Si =B ratio from 2% to 26%
qun
at every 2% intervals ð1Þ

qgult
BCIRult ¼ at ultimate ð2Þ
qunult
 
Sg
FSRR ¼ 1   100 for Sun =B ratio from 2%
Sun
Figure 5. Geometry of the geocell-reinforced foundation to 26% at 2% intervals ð3Þ
system.
where qun and qg are the values of the bearing pressure
of unreinforced sand and geocell-reinforced sand at a
of the test results and verify the consistency of test data. selected settlement (Si) and qun-ult and qg-ult are the
The maximum difference in the results of the three tests ultimate bearing capacity of unreinforced sand and
was in the range of 8%. geocell-reinforced sand at failure, respectively. Sun
and Sg are the values of the settlement of unreinforced
sand and geocell-reinforced sand at a selected bearing
Results and discussions pressure corresponding to Sun, correspondingly.
Definitions of determined values of tests
Embedded depth of the top layer of
The effectiveness of geocell reinforcement in this study
reinforcement (u)
was evaluated using the bearing capacity improvement
ratio (BCIR) which indicates the increase in the bearing The embedded depth of the geocell reinforcement
pressure at selected settlement values, the bearing beneath the footing serving as cushion prevents the
832
Table 3. Tests series performed in the study
Test
series Type of test H/B N d/B
A Unreinforced — — — —
B Geocell 2.142 1 —
reinforced
C Geocell 1.071 2 0.142
reinforced 2.142 0.714
1.428
D Geocell 1.071 1 —
reinforced 2.142
direct contact of footing base with the cell walls and
distributes the footing pressure more uniformly over
geocell reinforcement while preventing early buckling
of geocell and resulting in a significantly increased per-
formance of geocell-reinforced sand. Moghaddas
Tafreshi and Dawson4,5 reported that BCIR of strip
footing on geocell-reinforced soil increased with u/b
increase from 0 to 0.1, but the value of BCIR decreased
with depth of placement. Yoon et al.20 reported some-
what similar findings that BCIR reached maximum
value at u/B of 0.2. When the depth of placement
reached the width of footing (u/B ¼ 1), the influence
of geocell reinforcement become partially negligible
and the soil reinforced with geocell behaved like an
unreinforced case.4,5,20 Similar findings for circular
footings on geogrid cell-reinforced beds were reported
by Sitharam and Sireesh.27 Akinmusuru and
Akinbolade,28 Guido et al.29 and Yetimoglu et al.30 per-
formed tests on multi-layered geogrid and gave similar
results. Therefore, in the present study, the geocell
reinforcement was placed at u/B ¼ 0.1 throughout all
geocell-reinforced sand tests.
General behavior of geocell layer(s)
Figure 7 presents the bearing pressure–settlement rela-
tionships of tests having different heights of geocell (H/
B ratio varying from 1.07 to 2.142), numbers of geocell
layers (N varying from 1 to 2) and distances between
the two geocell layers (d/B ratio varying 0.142 to 1.428).
It is clearly observed that the bearing pressure at a spe-
cific settlement value increased as H and N increased.
The increase in the bearing pressure and stiffness at a
specific settlement value slightly decreased when d
increased for the same value of H/B ratio.
To determine the ultimate bearing capacity, both a
well-defined bearing pressure–settlement relationship
Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 31(12)
Bg/B u/B Remarks
— To quantify the improvements due to
geocell reinforcement
4.1 0.1 To reach at the optimum value of Bg/B
8.2
12.3
8.2 0.1 To determine the effect of the distance (d)
between the layers on bearing capacity and
settlement of foundation system
8.2 0.1 To study the effect of the height (H) of
geocell on bearing capacity and settlement
of foundation system
and a well-established method are needed. In some
cases, the determination of ultimate bearing pressure
from bearing pressure–settlement relationships may be
complicated. The ultimate bearing capacity for unre-
inforced soil (qun-ult) can easily be determined from
the measured bearing pressure–settlement relationships;
however, the ultimate bearing capacity for the rein-
forced cases (qg-ult) cannot be clearly identified. In the
literature, the settlement limitation method31–34 and
graphical construction method35–39 have been used to
determine the ultimate bearing pressure of foundations.
In this study, the ultimate bearing capacity of rein-
forced soil subjected to footing loading in Figure 6
was calculated using the method presented by Hirany
and Kulhawy.35–37 The bearing capacity failure took
place at the settlement equal to 17% of footing width
in case of unreinforced sand. Using the method pro-
posed by Hirany and Kulhawy,35–37 the ultimate bear-
ing capacity of sand reinforced with geocell was
calculated at a settlement value of 20% to 25% of the
footing width. Beyond the settlement value approxi-
mately equal to 20% of footing width, slight reduction
in bearing pressure was observed. The reason for this
reduction might be the upward movement of soil from
the sides of the foundation and local damage of soil–
geocell composite system below foundation.
Determination of the optimum width of the
geocell (Bg)
Test series B conducted on different size of geocell
(Bg/B) varying from 4.1 to 12.3 to determine the effect-
ive width ratio of Bg/B that would have no influence on
values of bearing pressure versus footing settlement of
geocell-reinforced sand are plotted in Figure 8.
Ultimate bearing pressures of unreinforced and
reinforced cases at failure are listed in Table 4.
Gurbuz and Mertol 833

qun qg q qun-ult qg-ult

Unreinforced Sg
Geocell
Si Sun

Footing settlement, s/B (%)

Footing settlement, s/B (%)

Sun-ult
Sg-ult

Bearing pressure, (kPa) Bearing pressure, (kPa)

Figure 6. Definition of the bearing capacity improvement ratio (BCIR) at selected settlement values, the bearing capacity
improvement ratio at ultimate (BCIRult) and the footing settlement reduction ratio (FSRR).

Bearingpressure (kPa) Bearing pressure, (kPa)

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0 0
Test series 2 (H= 15 cm, N=1)
H/B= 1.071, u/B= 0.1 unreinforced
5 d/B = - , N=1 Bg / B =4.1
d/B = 0.142, N = 2 Bg / B =8.2
d/B = 0.714, N = 2 10 Bg / B =12.3
10 d/B = 1.428, N = 2
Footing settlement, s/B (%)
Footing settlement, s/B(%)

15 unreinforced
20

20

30
25

H/B=2.142, u/B=0.1
30 d/B = - ,N=1
d/B = 0.142, N = 2 40
d/B = 0.714, N = 2
35 d/B = 1.428, N = 2

40 50

Figure 7. Bearing pressure—settlement relationships for test Figure 8. The effect of width of one geocell layer on the
series A, B, C and D at Bg/B ¼ 8.2. bearing pressure—settlement relationship.

The enhancement in bearing capacity ratio at failure

increases as the width of the geocell becomes about The determination the effect of distance (d) between
eight times the width of the foundation. This results
are different from those at Bg/B ¼ 4.2 of Moghaddas
the layers of geocell reinforcement
Tafreshi and Dawson,4,5 Siresh et al.,21 Bg/B ¼ 2.5 of In order to verify the performance of the geocell-rein-
Guido and Christou8 and Bg/B ¼ 2.17 of Yoon et al.20 forced sand in terms of bearing pressure due to the
Therefore, the results may have difference due to the variation of distance (d) between the layers of the geo-
stiffness of reinforcement of materials.20 Bg/B ratio of cell, test series D were performed with the height of
8.2 was kept constant throughout the rest of the testing geocell (H/B) of 1.071 and 2.142 as compared to unre-
program (Test Series C and D) in order to eliminate the inforced case. The results obtained here are presented in
effect of Bg/B ratio on the other parameters to be Figure 9 in terms of BCIRult at failure calculated. It is
determined. interesting to note that BCIRult reached the peak value
834 Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites 31(12)

Table 4. Values of ultimate bearing pressure and footing

(a) 4.8
settlement at failure for unreinforced and geocell reinforced sand Bg/B = 8.2, u/B = 0.1
(Bg/B ¼ 4.1, 8.2 and 12.3, and N ¼ 1) H/B=2.142
4.4
d/B = - ,N=1
Ultimate d/B = 0.142, N = 2
d/B = 0.714, N = 2
bearing 4.0 d/B = 1.428, N = 2
pressure Footing
at failure settlement 3.6
Bg/B (kPa) (s/B) at failure

BCIR
3.2
Unreinforced case 52.2 17.5
4.1 158.0 24.0 2.8
8.2 170.0 22.2
12.3 170.0 22.2 2.4 H/B=1.071
d/B = - ,N=1
d/B = 0.142, N = 2
2.0 d/B = 0.714, N = 2
d/B = 1.428, N = 2

1.6
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28
4.40 s /B (%)
H/B = 2.142, N = 2 (b) 85
H/B = 1.071, N = 2
80
BCIRult = qg-ult /qun-ult

75

70
4.00
FSRR (%)

65

60

55

3.60
0 0.4 0.8
d/B
Figure 9. Effect of distance between the layers of geocell
reinforcement.
when d/B ¼ ratio was around 0.142, however, the value
of BCIRult decreased with increasing d. This indicates
that as the distance between the two geocell layers was
reduced, better performance in terms of increase in
bearing pressure and decrease in settlement were
obtained. The reason for this phenomenon is that
reinforcement is effective within the depth of the
stress influence zone of foundation.20
The influence of height (H) of geocell and number
(N) of geocell layers
In order to investigate the influence the height of the
geocell, the number of layers of the geocell and the
distance between the layers, the value of BCIR and
FSSR, were calculated as defined in equation of (1)
50
1.2 1.6
45
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28
s/B (%)
Figure 10. (a) Enhancement in bearing pressure (BCIR) and
(b) reduction in footing settlement FSRR.
and (3) and presented in Figure 10(a) and (b) using
the results of all test series. In general, as seen in
Figure 10, the values of BCIR and FSSR increased
steadily with an increase in height of geocell (H/B)
and the layers of geocell (N). Improvement in BCIR
and reduction in FSSR are higher at higher settlement
of footing (s/B > 12%). This action showed that effi-
ciency of geocell enhanced as the footing kept penetrat-
ing into sand. Even though significant improvement in
the BCIR and the FSRR are obtained with the increase
in s/B ratio over 12%, settlement criteria put limit on
the bearing pressure increase. Therefore, additional
performance enhancement of geocell in terms of bear-
ing pressure capacity can be ignored after the value of
settlement greater than 12% of footing width.
Gurbuz and Mertol
5 Conclusions
4
3 sand yields higher bearing pressure and lower settle-
BCIRult
2 capacity of geocell-reinforced sand is determined
1 ratio at ultimate (BCIRult) is about 0.142 times the
H/B = 1.071, N = 1 and 2
u/B = 0.1, Bg/B =8.2, d/B variying
H/B = 2.142, N = 1 and 2
0 increase in bearing pressure becomes negligible. The
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
z/B
Figure 11. Determination of the depth of stress influence zone
under the footing.
Depth (z) of the soil region influenced by footing
loading
BCIRult at failure versus depth from surface to bottom
of reinforcement (z) are plotted in Figure 11 for
H/B ¼ 1.071, 2.142 and Bg/B ¼ 8.2. Values of BCIRult
of H/B ¼ 1.071 and 2.142 were obtained at z/B of 2.4
and 4.3, respectively, however, difference in BCIRult
was around 3.8% when ratio of H/B increased from
1.071 to 2.142. The depth of the soil region influenced
by footing loading mainly was a function of width of
footing in Figure 11 and so beyond the height of geocell
greater than about twice the width of foundation
(z > 2.4B), the bearing pressure enhancement was neg-
ligible due to the thickness of stress zone under footing.
It was an expected consequence as the improvement in
the bearing capacity with the increase in the height of
geocell resulted in an increase in the moment of inertia
of geocell which changes the bending and shear rigidity
of geocel.21 Dash et al.40 indicated that behavior of
geocell became dominant as the height of geocell
increased.
Moghaddas Tafreshi and Dawson4,5 pointed out
that marginal performance improvement took place
when the value of H/B ratio reached around 1.5 to 2.
Similar results were obtained by Sitharam et al.,41 as
the height of a geocell increased to around 1.8 times of
the diameter of a circular footing supported on a rein-
forced clay layer. The reason is that the zone of soil
influenced by the footing loading extends to a depth
of about one or two times the footing width.4
835
A series of laboratory tests were performed to study the
behavior of medium-dense sandy soil reinforced with
layers of the assembled 3D honeycomb cells (geocell)
produced from HDPE as compared to unreinforced
soil. From the comparison, the geocell-reinforced
ment at a selected settlement. The width ratio of geocell
to foundation (Bg/B) that do not affect the bearing
about 8.2. The distance (d) between the layers of geocell
resulting in higher the bearing capacity improvement
width of foundation. As the number of layers (N) of
geocell and height of geocell reinforcement increases,
results obtained from this study may be different than
those of full-scale tests in field, but, trend between the
two tests may be comparable.
It should be noted that only one type of foundation,
one geocell type and one type of sand were used in this
study; therefore, the results obtained from this study
may be different than those of full-scale tests in field.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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