Using Finite Element Strength Reduction Method for Stability Analysis of Geocell-Reinforced Slopes

Widespread application of geocells in practice, especially in slope stabilization, is mainly derived from the strengthening features they display in excess of membrane effect of planar geosynthetics. On the ground where geocells are in the shape of honeycombs, a three dimensional model and analysis provides a relatively more precise insight into the behavior of structures reinforced with them compared to the prevalent 2D means of slope stability analysis or methods taking the geocell layer as an equivalent soil layer. The three dimensional stability of geocell-reinforced slopes was investigated using strength reduction method (SRM) in the present paper. Both the geocells and their infill and surrounding soils were taken into account. Since ABAQUS is not provided with built-in ability of analysis by SRM, a SRM stepped procedure was adopted herein to determine FS by this finite element software. As the next step, using the aforementioned techniques, effects of some leading factors contributing to the stability of geocell-reinforced slopes such as geocell placement, pattern of multilayer reinforcement and number of geocell layers were evaluated thoroughly. Reliability of the applied stepped SRM procedure was verified in advance using the available results of a previously 3D- SRM slope stability analysis.