Influence of soil spatial variability on the response of strip footing on geocell-reinforced slope

The present study investigates the influences of spatial variability and randomness of the soil strength parameters on the load-settlement response of a strip footing placed on a geocell-reinforced soil slope by combining finite difference method with random field model. Both isotropic and anisotropic random fields of lognormally distributed soil friction angle are generated with the utilization of Cholesky-Decomposition technique. In some representative cases, cross-correlation between soil friction angle and soil cohesion, and spatial variability of soil dilation angle are considered. The mean and variation in the load carrying capacity of the footing corresponding to a particular settlement value are obtained after running several numbers of Monte-Carlo simulations. Mean load carrying capacity of the footing reduces with increasing randomness and spatial variation in soil properties, which are defined by the higher values of coefficient of variation and lower values of correlation lengths in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Influence of soil dilatancy is found significant for higher values of soil friction angle. Apart from the above-mentioned parameters, effects of footing setback distance, position of water table, and flexural rigidity of the geocell mattress on the load-settlement response of the footing are examined. Finally, the importance of performing probabilistic analysis is explained from the point of view of failure probability of the footing, calculated with respect to few design factors of safety.