Analysis of Geogrid Reinforced Flexible Pavement Using Plaxis 2D
摘要
Fatigue and rutting are the major distress in the flexible pavement that occur when the strains at the bottom of the asphalt layer and top of the subgrade layer exceed the allowable value. Recently, the geogrids are added as reinforcement in the pavement layer interfaces since it gives the resistance to tensile stresses, resulting in fatigue resistance, retardation of the rutting and reflective cracking. In this study, the geogrid reinforcement is provided at two interfaces of the pavement layer and the deflections were analyzed using Plaxis 2D software. Firstly, the geogrid is placed between the sub-base layer and subgrade soil, and the analysis was carried out to understand the effect of variation in the cohesive strength and modulus of subgrade soil with and without geogrid reinforcements. Secondly, the geogrid is provided between the asphalt layer and the base course to study the effect of reinforcements for varying asphalt layer thickness and modulus of asphalt mixtures. All the analyses are carried out for a standard axle load of 80 kN load and the contact pressure of 0.56 MPa. Five layered structures with geogrid are used in this study and the analysis is carried out assuming the layers are linearly elastic. The plain strain model with 15-noded elements is used in this study. Further, the efficacy of geogrid reinforcement was evaluated for both the rutting and fatigue aspects with the minimum deflection. This study will further help in optimizing the pavement structure reinforced with geogrid.