Analysis of geocell-reinforced mattress with consideration of horizontal–vertical coupling

Geocell reinforcement has been increasingly applied to road embankment engineering. Deformation calculation is one of the major concerns during the design process. In this paper, the power-series method was employed to investigate the performance of a geocell-reinforced mattress under symmetric loads. The geocell-reinforced mattress was idealized as a beam on a Winkler foundation. In the analysis, the soil–foundation beam interface resistance, related to the horizontal deformation coupling with the vertical deformation, was considered. Semi-analytic solutions were developed to assess the deformations and internal forces of the foundation beam and verified against an existing finite element method [9]. The results of the proposed method were close to the results from the finite element method. Moreover, the effects of various factors, such as height of embankment, horizontal and vertical foundation coefficients, composite elastic modulus and height of geocell-reinforced mattress, on the foundation beam settlement and the tension force within the beam are discussed. It was found that the interface resistance related to the horizontal deformation of the beam has a reduction effect on the embankment settlement, and it is beneficial to reduce the embankment settlement by increasing the beam rigidity and strengthening the subgrade soil body.