Numerical Modeling of Cellular Reinforced Fly Ash Walls - Effect of Reinforcement Coverage Ratio

Abstract

Thermal power stations produce enormous quantity of coal ash as a by-product of combustion, in India. It requires huge disposal area and creates environmental problems. In the present study an attempt has been made for proper utilization of fly ash as an alternative backfill material in cellular reinforced fly ash walls. Experiments were performed in the laboratory on small scale model walls subjected to uniformly distributed loading conditions using different reinforcement coverage ratios and different length of reinforcements to study their effect on its load-deformation behaviour. The present study also provides an approach for the use of plastic waste water bottles as cellular reinforcement material. Plane strain finite element simulation of the cellular reinforced fly ash wall was also performed using commercially available Plaxis 2D software. The backfill fly ash was modeled as linear elastic perfectly plastic material with Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria and cellular reinforcement was modeled as elastoplastic material. The finite element simulation results for failure patterns, horizontal displacements of facing panel showed reasonable agreement with the experimental results.