An Innovative Shape of Geogrid to increase Pull-Out Capacity

Abstract

In this research, the philosophy of manufacturing the geogrids in their conventional shape is modified to let the friction between the ribs and soil particles have a noteworthy effect on the final resistance of soil reinforced by geogrids. Inspired by the belts used to link gears, both surfaces of the conventionalBiaxial Geogridwere reformed by adding cubic cogs distributed in a sine wave order on both sides of the ribs. The proposed geogrid shall be denominated "ICB-GGR"as an abbreviation for Isometric Cogged Biaxial Geogrid. In order to study the improvement in the soil-cogged geogridinteraction, prototypes of theconventional Biaxial geogrid and the modified ICB-GGR were manufactured of steel 37with the same dimensions of apertures and ribs. After many unsucccessful trials to manufacture polymeric geogrid prototypes due to some technical difficulties, steel 37 was the most appropriate material to accomplish the researchsince the main target isto investigate theshapeeffect of the proposed ICB-GGR.Pull-out tests were operated according toASTM D 6706-0101with some modifications to suit the laboratory preparations.The geogrid prototypes were used to reinforce uniformly graded sand and were tested under three different values of overburden pressures. The results showed that thepull-out resistance of the proposed ICB-GGR superior the conventional Biaxial Geogrid by about 50%.