Hücresel dolgu sistemi ile güçlendirilmiş kumlu zeminlerin statik yük altında davranışı.

Geocell, which is mainly used in transportation and geotechnical engineering applications, is a three dimensional cellular geosynthetic product to provide all-around confinement by the interaction of infill soil, cell walls and cell geometry. Geocell prevents the lateral spreading of soil, provides increased stiffness, distributes the loads over a larger area and helps reducing the total and differential settlements, in other words it provides soil reinforcement and stabilization. This study comprises of laboratory model tests of geocell-reinforced sandy soil with different dimensions of geocells. Tests are conducted in a tank with dimensions of 1 m width, 1 m length and various heights depending on geocell height, where static loading is applied via a steel plate on the sand surface. Different geocell openings and cell heights are used. In addition, the load is applied at the center of the cell and at the intersection of polymer boundaries of geocells. 13 model tests are conducted to evaluate the amount of the contributions of the geocells with regards to height of the cell, width of the cell and loading location. The results are presented in terms of load versus settlement plots and bearing capacity and settlement performance of geocell reinforcement are investigated and compared to unreinforced conditions. It is observed that for a predetermined settlement value, presence of the geocells increased the.bearing capacity of the footing by 38% to 73% compared to unreinforced cases and reduced the settlements under a given pressure.M.S. - Master of Scienc