FEM analysis of treating expressway widening project with geocell

In order to study the treating effect of geocell on the widening expressway, the Coulomb friction model was used for simulating the nonlinear contact between the geocell composite body and filling of new subgrade, the vertical settlement and lateral displacement and relative settlement of the widening subgrade at various situation which included the different geocell depth of penetrating into the original subgrade and the different width of paved geocell were analyzed. The calculation results showed that the application of geocell can distribute the stress uniformly, and the differential settlement between the new and original subgrade is nearly eliminated. But the treating effect was not proportional to the increase in the width of the geocell and the depth of the geocell penetrating into the original subgrade.