Performance of a reinforced pavement structure with geocells via numerical simulation, considering a discontinuous subgrade

This article presents the numerical simulation response of a flexible pavement structure reinforced with geocells, as a strategy to mitigate the vertical deformations caused by faults in the clayey subgrade due to desiccation. The generated cracks by this phenomenon cause a discontinuous support system in the sub grade layer of pavement structures in which traditional mechanistic approaches are not feasible since a continuous support layer is considered in the design model. The simulation was performed with the PLAXIS 2D program, in which a flexible pavement structure was modeled on a cracked and over consolidated clayey subgrade. The proposed model was performed for the Siberia-Tenjo road corridor in the West Savannah of Bogotá, through a design proposed by the AASHTO method for the transit analysis for a period of 10 years, the subgrade was discretized with depths of groundwater level between 3 and 7 meters with symmetrical vertical fracture separations between 1.0 and 3.5 meters. The reinforcement of the pavement was considered from the design model by the stiffness and elasticity modules of the pavement layers, the effect of the geocell was located at the interface between the base layers and the granular subbase. It was found that the stiffening of the pavement layers mitigates the surface deformations, since the vertical displacements decrease when comparing the reinforced model against the unreinforced structure. The first approach comprises symmetry in depth, amplitude and separation of the cracks as a field of research opening.