Investigation of Shear Strength of Subbase-Subgrade Interface with Geosynthetics Reinforcement Utilizing A Large-Scale Direct Shear Test

Abstract

Geosynthetics are being used to strengthen road pavement. Geosynthetic inclusions improve pavement carrying capacity, maintenance costs, highway service life, reflective cracks, and undesirable large lateral and vertical deformations. The primary purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness of geosynthetics (geogrids and geotextiles) in stabilizing the subgrade and reinforcing the base course layers in unpaved test sections. Determine the mechanical interaction of subgrade soils (clay and sand) and aggregate road base layers (subbase) with and without reinforcement. Compute the shear strength parameters (cohesion, friction angle, and interface coefficient factor). Therefore, Large-scale direct shear experiments in the laboratory were performed on subbase-subgrade materials with and without geosynthetics, under the applying normal of stresses (25, 50, 75, and 100) kPa, indicating the quantity overburden the pressure in paving. The present research uses a large-scale direct shear apparatus with an up square box (200 mm×200 mm×100 mm) and a bottom rectangular box (200 mm×250 mm×100 mm). A direct shear test was implemented by manufacturing this equipment. The results obtained from experiments showed that biaxial geogrid G1 has the best behavior for both (subbase-clay) and (subbase-sand) and has an interface shear coefficient factor more significant than unity and equal to 1.05 and 1.02, respectively.