Discussions and Closures

Discussion of Behavior of
Geocell-Reinforced Subballast Subjected
to Cyclic Loading in Plane-Strain Condition
by Buddhima Indraratna, M. Mahdi Biabani,
and Sanjay Nimbalkar
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0001199

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Vishnu Diyaljee, Ph.D., P.Eng., F.ASCE 1

1

Managing Director, GAEA Engineering Ltd., 33 Ashby Field Rd.,

Brampton, ON, Canada L6X 0R4. E-mail: diy001@gaeaeng.com

Over the last two to three decades since the initiation of research
and development of cellular confinement systems in 1975 by the
United States Army Corps of Engineers (Webster and Alford
1978), the use of geocells has gained relatively wide acceptance
in various sectors of civil infrastructure works especially in
the roadway transportation sector where as a result of its threedimensional (3D) structure improvements to lateral and vertical
confinement of subbases, base courses, and subgrades have resulted in increased stiffness and bearing capacity of these roadway
support components individually, and as composites under both
static and repeated loadings. Geocells have been also identified
to allow the use of low cost and low quality base course materials
in roadways.
In relation to the railway transportation sector, whereas similar
improvements have been identified mainly by product manufacturers except for the research work by Leshchinsky (2011) and
Leshchinsky and Ling (2013), there has not been much research
undertaken or reported on the use of geocells in components of
railway track substructureballast, subballast, and subgrade. Its
use within the ballast section, which would be desirable to enhance
lateral stability of the track structure, has not been promoted because its presence would interfere with the ballast cleaning operations required to remove fouling material such as fines due to
ballast breakdown, coal fines, and fines from the subgrade soil that
may be pumped upward through the subballast.
In their paper, the authors have presented the findings of a laboratory study on the deformation behavior of geocell-reinforced
and nonreinforced railway subballast tested under cyclic loading
in a large-scale cubical triaxial apparatus under plane strain conditions. The tests were conducted on dry subballast, and results obtained did not take into consideration the effects of the subballast
aggregate breakdown.
The geocells used for the reinforced tests were instrumented
with strain gauges as shown in Fig. 3(a) of the paper to measure
the vertical and lateral strains of the geocell and subballast as well
as the axial strain of the geocell mattress as noted in the inset of
Fig. 10.
Because the vertical strains reported for the geocell and subballast are decidedly different in magnitude from the axial strains reported for the geocell mattress, it would be of benefit for the general
understanding of the results obtained and practical importance to
identify in Fig 3(a) which of the strain gauges were used to obtain
the axial strain in the geocell mattress and the vertical strains in the
geocell and subballast. The interpretation here by the discusser is
that the geocell mattress is composed of the geocell structure without the subballast.
ASCE

Lateral strains were not reported for either the nonreinforced

or reinforced tests but instead the volumetric strains were
presented for both the reinforced and nonreinforced tests. No
information was presented in relation to the type of instrumentation used to measure the vertical and lateral strains of the unreinforced tests, and it is assumed that linear variable differential
transformers (LVDTs) or dial gauge instrumentation may have
been used.
While the results presented in Figs. 4(a and b), 5(a and b), and
6(a and b) and the interpretations made and presented are
logical deductions from the graphical plots, the compaction of
the aggregate in both the reinforced and nonreinforced sections
would have added some lateral stress and vertical and lateral strains
to the nonreinforced subballast, and in the case of the geocellreinforced structure, caused some axial and lateral strains in the
geocell mattress and vertical and lateral strains in the geocell and
subballast.
There are, however, some questions regarding Figs. 46 referred
to previously, and Fig. 7, which shows the resilient modulus values
determined for both the nonreinforced and reinforced tests.
With regard to Figs. 46, the sequence of sample preparation for
both types of tests consists of a construction phase created by the
compaction of the aggregate followed by a loading phase consisting
of a constant magnitude cyclic load applied at varying frequencies
as the major principal stress, and varying confining pressures as the
minor principal stress.
In all cases, the intermediate principal stress in the longitudinal
direction of the rail track was controlled for each of the applied
confining stresses so that the deformations in that direction would
be zero to simulate a plane strain condition, which arguably
simulates the actual stress state inside the track substructure resulting from moving wheel loads (Ishikawa et al. 2011) rather than
the stress state in the conventional triaxial test where the intermediate and minor principal stresses are equal. Although the strains
resulting from the construction phase may be considered to be
applicable to all tests and, therefore, regarded as a constant, it
would have been worthwhile to account for these strains separately
from the strains resulting from the cyclic loading testing phase.
Hence, while the trends may be the same, the magnitudes would
be different and allow for a better understanding of the geocell
behavior under stresses applied during the construction and loading
phases.
The magnitude of lateral stress against the geocell resulting from
compaction would be desirable for comparison with the applied
confining stresses used in the cyclic loading tests. This is important
from the point of view of the real track structure whereby the confining stress within the geocell would be obtained primarily from
the compaction of the geocell and subballast along with the surcharge pressure from the ballast thickness, ties, and rail. This information could have an effect on the development of the additional
confinement model shown in Fig. 11. The stress exerted against the
geocell by the compaction can be determined from appropriately
placed load cells on the vertical sections of the geocell or from computation as outlined by Duncan and Seed (1986).
In relation to Fig. 7, the values reported appear to be too low
for subballast by a factor of at least 10 in comparison to values
reported in general in the literature for granular materials with similar gradation as the subballast.
Looking ahead, although the experimental results have demonstrated the beneficial effects of the use of geocell reinforcement

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of the subballast, the influence of fines that may foul the subballast
needs to be addressed from both external sources such as coal
fines as well as from aggregate degradation within the ballast and
subballast aggregate matrix. Quite apart from the use of possible
geotextile separators at the interface of the ballast and subballast
layers and the subballast and subgrade, there is a need to address
the size of perforations or openings within the geocell walls. The
openings are no doubt important to allow for quick dissipation of
excess porewater pressure generated by the rapid wheel loading
of the passing axles. However, this could also allow for expulsion
of some nondetrimental fine material, which may be either beneficial to the overstability of the aggregate matrix or result in track
settlement.
The authors may wish to provide their comments on the issues
raised in this discussion.

ASCE

References
Duncan, J. M., and Seed, R. B. (1986). Compaction-induced earth pressures under K0conditions. J. Geotech. Eng. Div., 10.1061/(ASCE)
0733-9410(1986)112:1(1), 122.
Ishikawa, T., Sekine, E., and Miura, S. (2011). Cyclic deformation of
granular material subjected to moving-wheel loads. Can. Geotech.
J., 48(5), 691703.
Leshchinsky, B. (2011). Enhancing ballast performance using geocell confinement. Proc., Geo-frontiers, Advances in Geotechnical Engineering, Dallas, TX, 40724698.
Leshchinsky, B., and Ling, H. I. (2013). Numerical modeling of behavior
of railway ballasted structure with geocell confinement. Geotext.
Geomembr., 36, 3343.
Webster, S. L., and Alford, S. J. (1978). Investigation of construction
concepts for pavements across soft ground. Technical Rep. S-78-6,
U.S. Army Engineer Waterway Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS.

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