Modeling of beams on reinforced granular beds

PRITI MAHESHWARI, P. K. BASUDHAR and S. CHANDRA

w
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.
(Received 11 May 2004; revised 26 November 2004; accepted 10 December 2004)
Abstract. The paper describes a mechanical model for estimating the exural response of a
strip footing, supporting a column (imposing a concentrated load), resting on a compacted
granular bed overlying a reinforcement layer for example, geogrids, geomats etc. below which
lies a loose soil deposit. The footing is idealized as a beam and the reinforcing element is
assumed to have nite bending stiness and negligible frictional resistance. The upper and
lower soil layers are idealized by a series of linear and discrete springs (Winkler springs) of
dierent stiness values. To nd the response of such a model the governing dierential
equations have been derived and expressed in a nondimensional form. A closed form ana-
lytical solution of the same has been obtained subjected to appropriate boundary conditions.
Using the present approach the resulting solution for a degenerated case of a long beam is
found to be identical to the same of Hetenyi (1946, Beams on elastic foundations, University
of Michigan press, Ann Arbor, MI). Parametric studies reveal that the ratio of exural rigidity
of upper and lower beam and the ratio of stiness of the upper and lower soil layers aect
signicantly the response of the foundation.
Key words. geosynthetic, ground improvement, reinforced beds, winkler foundation.
1. Introduction
Modeling of foundations and earth structures reinforced with geosynthetic for
predicting the expected stresses and displacement with in the soil mass is one of the
interesting topics of research in geotechnical engineering. Such modeling is generally
based on continuum mechanics, discrete elements (mechanical modeling) and nite
elements. With mechanical modeling, it is possible to simulate the behavior of earth
structures to understand the soilstructure-reinforcement interaction phenomenon
and predict the contact pressure distribution and deformation. Idealization of the
reinforced earth system by mechanical models is widely used, very often because of
its simplicity and familiarity with the geotechnical engineers.
Several lumped parameter models have been developed over the years for soil
structure interaction studies (Winkler, 1867; Filonenko-Borodich, 1940; Hetenyi,
1946; Pasternak, 1954; Kerr, 1964, 1965; Rhines, 1969). These models have been
further extended to analyze reinforced earth problems. Various studies have been
made to model the reinforced beds and nd their response under external loads.
Some of these are Madhav and Poorooshasb (1988), Ghosh (1991), Shukla and
Geotechnical and Geological Engineering (2006) 24: 313324 Springer 2006
DOI 10.1007/s10706-004-7548-z
w
Corresponding author: Professor S. Chandra, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur 208016, India. tel: 91 512 259 7029/259 7667; fax: 91 512 2597395; e-mails: pma-
hesh@iitk.ac.in; pkbd@iitk.ac.in; sarv@iitk.ac.in
Chandra (1994a, b, c), Yin (1997, 2000). All the above studies idealized the geo-
synthetics layer as rough elastic membrane. The only study that has come to the
authors notice which considers the bending stiness of the geosynthetics layer is due
to Fakher and Jones (2001) who studied the response of a uniformly distributed load
placed directly on sand bed overlying a super soft clay with the reinforcement
embedded in between these two layers. These studies have resulted in improved
modeling of reinforced beds and better predictions.
2. Statement of the problem
Figure 1 shows a shallow strip footing idealized as an elastic beam (exural rigidity
E
1
I
1
) of length, 2l, acted upon by a line load Q
t
imposed by the wall and idealized as
a concentrated load, at the middle of the footing and resting on the surface of a
compacted dense soil layer placed over a reinforcing geogrid/geocell/geomat/geo-
mattress layer (idealized as beam of exural rigidity E
2
I
2
and same length 2l (Fig-
ure 2) below which lies a natural loose soil deposit. The reinforcing layer is able to
resist bending and assumed to be smooth. The compacted dense soil and the
underlying poor soil layers are idealized as weightless Winkler springs of stiness k
1
and k
2
, respectively (Figure 2). Thus, it is a 2-dimensional plane strain problem. The
objective is to nd the exural response of the foundationreinforced bed interaction
and perform the parametric studies to nd the relative inuence of various param-
eters on the overall behavior of the foundation system.
3. Analysis
Due to symmetry, only one half (x P 0) of the model is considered in the analysis.
The analysis of the idealized foundationreinforced bed (Figure 2) is carried out as
follows;
The deection ordinates of the upper (footing) and lower (geosynthetic) beams are
denoted as y
1
and y
2
, respectively, then the distributed pressure in the foundation
under the upper beam is p
1
k
1
(y
1
) y
2
), and under the lower beam, is p
2
k
2
y
2
.
The x and y represent the co-ordinates as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 1. Denition sketch of the problem.
PRITI MAHESHWARI ET AL. 314
The governing dierential equations for the upper and lower beams for 0 x l,
are as follows (Hetenyi, 1946)
E
1
I
1
d
4
y
1
dx
4
p
1
k
1
y
1
y
2
1
and
E
2
I
2
d
4
y
2
dx
4
p
2
p
1
k
1
k
2
y
2
k
1
y
1
2
The pressures p
1
and p
2
are considered positive when accompanied by positive
(downward) deection. From Equation 1, one can write
y
2

E
1
I
1
k
1
d
4
y
1
dx
4
y
1
3
Dierentiating the above equation, one gets
d
4
y
2
dx
4

E
1
I
1
k
1
d
8
y
1
dx
8

d
4
y
1
dx
4
4
Combining Equations 2 and 4 the following equation can be obtained,
d
8
y
1
dx
8

k
1
E
1
I
1
E
2
I
2
E
1
I
1

k
2
k
1
E
1
I
1
E
2
I
2
_ _
d
4
y
1
dx
4

k
1
k
2
E
1
I
1
E
2
I
2
y
1
0 5
Equations 3 and 5 are the governing dierential equations for the proposed model.
R
1
and R
2
are the characteristic lengths of upper and lower beams, respectively, and
dened as
R
1

E
1
I
1
k
1
4
_
and R
2

E
2
I
2
k
2
4
_
The governing dierential equations are nondimensionalized in terms of the fol-
lowing nondimensional parameters:
k
1
k
2
Q
t
E
1
I
1
E
2
I
2
Upper beam
Lower beam
2l
x
y
y
1
y
2
Figure 2. Denition sketch of proposed model.
MODELING OF BEAMS 315
Nondimensional deection of the upper and lower beam,
y
0
1
y
1
E
1
I
1
=Q
t
R
3
1
; y
0
2
y
2
E
2
I
2
=Q
t
R
3
2
; respectively (Matlock and Reese, 1960),
Relative exural rigidity of the beams, R E
1
I
1
=E
2
I
2
;
Relative stiness of the soil layers, r k
1
=k
2
:
Nondimensional co-ordinate along the length of the beams, z x/R
1
Nondimensional half length of the beam z
max
l/R
1
Using the above parameters the governing dierential equations 3 and 5 can be
written in nondimensional forms as follows
y
0
2

1
R
R
r
_ _
3=4
d
4
y
0
1
dz
4
y
0
1
_ _
6
and
d
8
y
0
1
dz
8
1
R
r
R
_ _
d
4
y
0
1
dz
4

R
r
_ _
y
0
1
0 7
Writing Equation 7 as
d
8
y
0
1
dz
8
A
d
4
y
0
1
dz
4
By
0
1
0 8
where, A 1
R
r
R
_ _
and B
R
r
.
The roots of the equation 8 are
m
1;2;3;4
1 i

a b
4
4
_
and m
5;6;7;8
1 i

a b
4
4
_
where, a
A
2
and b

A
2
4
B
_
. Now, introducing the notation,
k
1

ab
4
4
_
and k
2

ab
4
4
_
, the general solution of Equation 8 is,
y
0
1
e
k
1
z
C
1
cos k
1
z C
2
sin k
1
z e
k
1
z
C
3
cos k
1
z C
4
sin k
1
z
e
k
2
z
C
5
cos k
2
z C
6
sin k
2
z e
k
2
z
C
7
cos k
2
z C
8
sin k
2
z 9
The Equation (6) can be written as
y
0
2

1
R
R
r
_ _
3=4
e
k
1
z
1 4k
4
1
_ _
C
1
cos k
1
z C
2
sin k
1
z
e
k
1
z
1 4k
4
1
_ _
C
3
cos k
1
z C
4
sin k
1
z
e
k
2
z
1 4k
4
2
_ _
C
5
cos k
2
z C
6
sin k
2
z
e
k
2
z
1 4k
4
1
_ _
C
7
cos k
2
z C
8
sin k
2
z
_

_
_

_
10
The Equations 9 and 10 give the nondimensional deection of the upper and lower
beam, respectively. The expression for the normalized bending moment of the upper
and lower beam can be obtained by dierentiating the Equations 9 and 10, which can
be written as
Normalized bending moment of upper beam =
d
2
y
0
1
dz
2
Normalized bending moment of lower beam =
d
2
y
0
2
dz
2
Hetenyi (1946) solved the above equations for innite beams and as such could
reduce the constants of integration to four by introducing the boundary condition
PRITI MAHESHWARI ET AL. 316
that the deection is zero at the edges of the beams thus getting the constants C
1
, C
2
,
C
5
, and C
6
equal to zero. However, in the present case the beams are of nite lengths
and, as such, it is necessary to take appropriate boundary conditions to solve the
above equations. These boundary conditions for the present problem are as follows:
For the upper beam, at the point of application of load, i.e., at x 0, slope of the
deected shape of beam is zero and shear force is Q
t
/2. At the edge of upper beam,
i.e., at x l, the bending moment and shear force are zero as beam end is a free end.
For the lower beam, which is within the foundation soil, at point x 0, slope of
deected shape of the beam and shear force are zero and at x l, bending moment
and shear force are zero. From the above-mentioned boundary conditions one gets
the following nondimensional equations.
For upper beam
At z 0;
dy
0
1
dz
0 and
d
3
y
0
1
dz
3

1
2
At z z
max
;
d
2
y
0
1
dz
2
0 and
d
3
y
0
1
dz
3
0
For lower beam
At z 0;
dy
0
2
dz
0 and
d
3
y
0
2
dz
3
0
At z z
max
;
d
2
y
0
2
dz
2
0 and
d
3
y
0
2
dz
3
0
11
From the above eight equations, eight linear equations are obtained and solved by
Cholesky Decomposition Scheme to get the unknown constants C
1
to C
8
. Using these
constants in the Equations 9 and 10 the values of deections can be computed and these
equations can be dierentiated to get appropriate expressions for computing the values
of bending moment and shear force of the upper and lower beams along their length.
As such, the present solution is more general and Hetenyis solution (1946) be-
comes a particular case of the present one. Another aspect of the present analysis,
which can be contrasted with that of Hetenyi, lies in the fact that in the present study
the reinforcing beam is a physical entity and in Hetenyis analysis the beam was
introduced to remove the deciency of the Winkler model which lacks continuity.
4. Results and discussions
As the problem considered is symmetric, only half of the beam (0 z z
max
) is
analyzed. To validate and check the results from the present analysis, the results are
obtained for the particular case when both the beams are long enough to be
considered as innite and compared with the results given by Hetenyi (1946) for
MODELING OF BEAMS 317
innite beams and are found to be identical. However for the sake of completeness
the comparison is presented in Figure 3.
Parametric studies are carried out to study the eect of various parameters on the
behavior of the foundation. The ranges of various parameters are worked out by
taking practical range of parameters and are given below:
Coecient of subgrade reaction for dense sand 125375 MN/m
3
(Das, 1999)
Nondimensional length of the beams (z
max
) 220.
Relative exural rigidity of the beams (R E
1
I
1
/E
2
I
2
) 150.
Relative stiness of the soil layers (r k
1
/k
2
) 120.
Figure 4 shows the variation of normalized deection of the upper beam along the
co-ordinate direction for dierent beam lengths ranging from 2 to 20 for particular
values of R and r, 10 and 5, respectively. It is seen that the maximum deection, of
the upper beam occurring at the center of the beam, does not vary at all for all beams
having a normalized length greater than 6; all beams having normalized length
greater that 16 show almost identical deection behavior. Thus, it can be concluded
that for z
max
16, the beam would behave as an innite beam. For beam length less
that 16 the predicted deection at the end is not zero as expected for innite beams
but the dierence between the values are marginal. For the parameters considered in
the study, heaves of magnitude of 0.19 and 0.14 are observed at the edge of upper
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Normalized Distance from Centre (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f

t
h
e

b
e
a
m
Present Study
Hetenyi Solution (1946)
Deflection of Upper Beam
Deflection of Lower Beam
r = 5, R =10
Figure 3. Comparison of deection of beams with Hetenyi (1946).
PRITI MAHESHWARI ET AL. 318
beam for z
max
equals to 4 and 8, respectively. For z
max
greater than 10, rst the
normalized deection of upper beam reduces from its maximum value at z 0, then
heave is observed from z equals to 5.511 and then again deection becomes positive
which becomes almost zero when z is greater than 16. This implies that upper beam
gets lifted up from the ground surface from z 5.5 to 11 for z
max
greater than 10.
Similar observation is made from Figure 5, with respect to the predicted deections
for the lower reinforcing beam, only dierence being that the magnitude of deection
of the lower beam is lesser than that of the upper beam. As soil can not take tension,
the model can be further improved to take care of the same.
Eect of relative exural rigidity of beams designated by the ratio R has been
studied for the ratio r 5 and z
max
8. It is observed from Figure 6 that as the
ratio R varies from 5 to 50, the deection of the beam increases although this
increase is not signicant. When the ratio R is equal to 1, the predicted value of
maximum deection is lower than those obtained for other values of ratio R. Fig-
ure 7 shows the corresponding variation for the lower beam. The maximum nor-
malized deection of lower beam at the center, i.e., at z 0, reduces by 55% as ratio
R increases from 1 to 50. Around z 5.3, the deection of beam for all considered
values of ratio R, is almost same and at the edge of the lower beam the normalized
deection reduces by approximately 77% for the same increase in ratio R. This
probably can be explained as follows; as the ratio R increases, the exural rigidity of
upper beam is more as compared to that of lower beam, which distribute the load to
the lower beam in such a way that it is subjected to lesser stress level causing lesser
deection for higher values of ratio R.
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Normalized Distance from Centre (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f

U
p
p
e
r

B
e
a
m

(
y
1
'
)
R = 10, r = 5
z
max
=2
4
8 10 12
16
Figure 4. Eect of length of the beams on deection of upper beam.
MODELING OF BEAMS 319
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Normalized Distance from Centre (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f
L
o
w
e
r

B
e
a
m

(
y
2
'
)
R = 10, r = 5
4
8
12
16
10
14
z
max
=2
Figure 5. Eect of length of the beams on deection of lower beam.
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Normalized Distance from Center (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f

U
p
p
e
r
B
e
a
m

(
y
1
'
)
r = 5, z
max
=8
R=1
5
10
20
50
Figure 6. Eect of relative exural rigidity on deection of upper beam.
PRITI MAHESHWARI ET AL. 320
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Normalized Distance from Center (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f

L
o
w
e
r

B
e
a
m

(
y
2
'
)
r = 5, z
max
=8
R = 1
5
10
20
50
Figure 7. Eect of relative exural rigidity on deection of lower beam.
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Normalized Distance from Center (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

D
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
o
n

o
f

U
p
p
e
r

B
e
a
m

(
y
1
'
)
R = 10, z
max
=8
r = 20
10
5
2
1
Figure 8. Eect of relative stiness ratio on deection of upper beam.
MODELING OF BEAMS 321
The eect of variation of stiness ratio of the soil layers, r, on the normalized
deection of upper beam is shown in Figure 8 for ratio R 10 and z
max
8. At the
center, i.e., at z 0, the deection decreases by 87% as ratio r is reduced from 20 to
1. For ratio r equal to 1, the deection rst decreases and heave is observed and at
the edge of the beam the deection is negligible but when the ratio r varies from 2 to
20, heave is observed beyond z P 6 and the corresponding maximum value of heave
increases from 0.034 to 1.73 the relative dierence between these being very high.
Higher values of ratio, r, signies the presence of a weaker soil below the strong top
soil and as such the corresponding deections are greater. Similar behavior is
observed for lower reinforcing beam.
Figures 9 and 10 show the variation of normalized bending moment, of upper and
lower beams, respectively, along the length of the beams for the ratio R 10, and
z
max
8. The gures also bring into focus the eect of the variation of the ratio r on
the overall behavior. From Figure 9, it is observed that for the upper beam maxi-
mum positive (sagging) bending moment occurs at z 0, which decreases by
approximately 43% as ratio, r, decreases from 20 to 1. The section, at which max-
imum negative (hogging) bending moment occurs shifts towards the edge of the
beam as the ratio, r, increases. Similar kind of behavior has been observed for the
lower reinforcing beam also (Figure 10). The maximum positive normalized bending
moment for the lower beam decreases from 0.043 to 0.023 as ratio r decreases from
20 to 1.
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Normalized Distance from Centre (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

B
e
n
d
i
n
g

M
o
m
e
n
t

f
o
r

U
p
p
e
r

B
e
a
m
r=1
2
5
10
20
R = 10, z
max
= 8
8
Figure 9. Eect of variation of relative stiness of soil on bending moment of upper beam.
PRITI MAHESHWARI ET AL. 322
5. Conclusions
The following generalized conclusions can be drawn from the study reported above:
(1) For innite beams the solutions obtained from the present study and those of
Hetenyis model (1946) are identical and thus validate the correctness of the
solution procedure.
(2) Beyond the normalized length of beams equal to 16, there is practically no
change in the normalized deection of beams and the edge deection being
negligible, the beams can be considered to be of innite length for the range of
parameters considered.
(3) Relative exural rigidity of beams represented by ratio, R, does not aect much
the normalized deection of upper beam (strip footing) but aects the normal-
ized deection of lower beam (the geosynthetic reinforcement) signicantly. The
deection of lower beam can be reduced to the extent of 77% by increasing the
ratio, R, from 1 to 50.
(4) The relative stiness of soils, i.e., ratio, r, has signicant inuence on the nor-
malized deection of upper beam as well as that on lower beam. At the center of
beams, the reduction in normalized deection of beam is 87% and 23% for
upper and lower beam, respectively, for corresponding decrease in the ratio, r,
from 20 to 1. For the upper beam heave is observed at the edge.
(5) Maximum normalized positive bending moment occurs at the center for upper
beam, while at the edge, it is zero. The maximum positive normalized bending
-0.02
-0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Normalized Distance from Centre (z)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
z
e
d

B
e
n
d
i
n
g

M
o
m
e
n
t

f
o
r

L
o
w
e
r

B
e
a
m
r=1
2
5
10
20
R = 10, z
max
= 8
8
Figure 10. Eect of variation of relative stiness of soil on bending moment of lower beam.
MODELING OF BEAMS 323
moment can decrease to the extent of 43% for decrease in ratio, r, from 20 to 1.
The position of section of maximum negative normalized bending moment shifts
toward the edge of the beam as ratio, r, increases. Similar kind of behavior has
been observed for lower reinforcing beam.
References
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