Experimental study on geocell reinforced base over dredged soil using static plate load test

Dredging process is the process of removing sediments from a water body that has accumulated as a result of upland erosion to preserve a required depth. The accumulation of large quantities of sediment has led to significant environmental and financial problems. Due to lack of insufficient strength, dredged soils need improvement. It is thus possible to implement the geocell-reinforcement in base course to improve the strength and stiffness of the weak subgrades. This paper uses static plate loading technique to investigate the reuse of dredged soil as a subgrade in unpaved roads. Geocell is a three-dimensionally interconnected geosynthetic material used for strengthening the properties of the base course. Numerous research for planar geosynthetic reinforcement has already being carried out, but limited research has been done for three-dimensional geocell reinforcement. Geocell reinforced bases have shown significant advantages over unreinforced ones. In the present study unpaved pavements with and without inclusion of geocells were tested under static loading. Lime stone aggregates were used in base course as infill material. Subgrade used in this study were dredged soil form Dal lake having a CBR of 5%. The results have been reported in terms of deformation, vertical stress and strain within geocell. It was observed that the load bearing capacity and vertical stress distribution of the model pavement system were substantially improved due to the geocell reinforcement. It was determined that geocell can improve the behavior of unpaved road constructions quite efficiently, with decrease in permanent deformation and increase in vertical stress distribution.