Behaviour of Geocell Reinforced Sand Supporting Footings Using Response Surface Method

The bearing capacity of shallow foundations on geocell-reinforced sand (GRS) depends not only on the soil characteristics but also on the geometries and properties of geocell. The geometry characteristics of GRS comprise height, length and cell aperture size of geocell as well as the sand layer thickness engaged between footing and GRS layer. Using the design-of-experiments (DOE) method the trends of bearing capacity ratio (BCR) as a function of selected geometry parameters of geocell are systematically visualized. Furthermore, trends of BCR as a function of geocell-selected geometry parameters are analysed. To this end, the study deploys the response surface methodology (RSM) to identify several configurations of geocell by conducting only twenty-seven laboratory tests. The results show that the DOE-RSM method gives an efficient interpretation of the variable’s interaction while it lessens the number of tests. In addition, it has been found that the geocell height is the most influential parameter on BCR of footings on GRS. Moreover, an interaction between geocell aperture size and geocell height is recognised. The results are formulated and compared with the literature, resulting in good agreement.