Coir Geocells

Abstract

Behaviour of geocells made of woven coir geotextiles, placed over soft soil, was studied by varying the width, height and cell size through model tests. The studies have shown that, with the provision of geocell-reinforced sand cushion, there is a substantial reduction in settlement of the underlying soft soil due to modified stress distribution. The beneficial effect in terms of increased bearing capacity and reduced settlement is proportional to the width, height and cell size of coir geocell mattress. Optimum width, height and cell size of coir geocell were derived from the model tests. A tenfold increase in bearing capacity of soft clay is obtained by the provision of geocell reinforcement in the system. The performance of coir geocell with synthetic geocell having same width, height, cell size and shape were also evaluated and found that for 10 cm high geocell, the bearing capacity of synthetic geocell is 1.73 times more than that of coir geocell. In the case of 20 cm high geocell, the average increase in bearing capacity of synthetic geocell is 2.29 times that of geocell with coir.