Fabrication and Testing of Low Strength Geocells Using 3D Printed Polypropylene Sheets

Geocells are being extensively used in road and rail embankments, pavements and retaining structures. Research on the cyclic load performance of these structures is heavily based on reduced scale model tests coupled with numerical modelling. Most of the available model studies on geocell-reinforced...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of geosynthetics and ground engineering 2024-06, Vol.10 (3), Article 40
Main Authors: Krishna, Aarya, Latha, Gali Madhavi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3-D printers
Availability
Building Materials
Customization
Cyclic loads
Engineering
Environmental Science and Engineering
Foundations
Geoengineering
Geosynthetics
Geotechnical fabrics
Hydraulics
Manufacturing
Mechanical analysis
Mechanical properties
Model testing
Numerical models
Original Paper
Polypropylene
Scale models
Shear tests
Tension tests
Texture
Three dimensional printing
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Summary:Geocells are being extensively used in road and rail embankments, pavements and retaining structures. Research on the cyclic load performance of these structures is heavily based on reduced scale model tests coupled with numerical modelling. Most of the available model studies on geocell-reinforced structures use prototype geocells or geocells made using nonwoven geotextiles or geonets due to the unavailability of low strength geocells in the market. Such studies suffer from many limitations that arise due to discrepancies in geometric scaling, texture and mechanical response. Hence, 3D printing, which enables the manufacturing of geosynthetics with optimized configurations, customized texture and mechanical properties holds great promise in producing low strength geocells for reduced scale model tests. This study demonstrates the applicability of 3D printing technique for manufacturing customized geocells using polypropylene (PP) sheets. Wide-width tension tests, junction strength tests and interface shear tests were carried out on 3D printed geocells. Through these tests combined with PIV analysis, it is shown that the geocells fabricated by ultrasonically welding the 3D printed polypropylene sheets could closely replicate the tensile and interface shear behaviour of the commercial geocells.
ISSN:2199-9260
2199-9279
DOI:10.1007/s40891-024-00547-1