Performance Test for Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Including Effects of Preloading

Details

• Creators:
  Ketchart, K. ; Wu, J. T. H.
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Colorado. Reinforced Soil Research Center
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Deformation Finite Element Method Geotechnology Highways I42: Soil Mechanics Soils Stiffness
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-RD-01-018
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Final Report
• Corporate Publisher:
  Federal Highway Administration, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center
• Abstract:
  A study was undertaken to investigate the behavior of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil (GRS) masses under various loading conditions and to develop a simplified analytical model for predicting deformation characteristics of a generic GRS mass. Significant emphasis was placed on the effect of preloading. To conduct the study, a revised laboratory test, known as the Soil-Geosynthetic Performance (SGP) test, was first developed. The test is capable of investigating the behavior of a generic GRS mass in a manner mimicking the field placement condition, and the soil and geosynthetic reinforcement are allowed to deform in an interactive manner. A series of SGP tests was performed. Different soils and reinforcements were employed, and the soil-geosynthetic composites were subject to various loading sequences. The tests showed that preloading typically reduces vertical and lateral deformations of a generic soil mass by a factor 2 to 7, and that prestressing (preloading followed by reloading from a non-zero stress level) can further increase the vertical stiffness by a factor of 2 to 2.5. Correlations between the results of SGP tests and full-scale GRS structures were evaluated. It was found that the degree of reduction in settlement due to preloading could be assessed by the SGP test with very good accuracy. Finite element analyses were performed to examine the stress distribution in the SGP test. The importance of using small reinforcement spacing was evidenced by the stress distribution. A Simplified Preloading-Reloading (SPR) analytical model was developed to predict the deformation characteristics of a GRS mass subject to monotonic loading and preloading/reloading. The SPR model was shown to be able to accurately predict the results obtained from the SPG tests and numerical analysis of automated plane strain reinforcement (APSR) tests.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTFH61-98-P-00402
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:76d919032971a90f97a35632e066befa8d9297b91e58cc4ba6d1c72b0a17cbe6
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/40689/dot_40689_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.80 MB ]