Deformation analysis of a geocell mattress using a decoupled iterative method

Deformation analysis is a major concern in many geotechnical applications. In this paper, the deformation behavior of a geocell mattress subjected to symmetric loads was studied. The mattress was idealized as an elastic foundation beam. The horizontal beam-soil interfacial shear resistances at the beam top and bottom sides were taken into account by assuming the resistances to be linear with the relative horizontal displacements. A decoupled iterative method was employed to solve the differential displacement equations derived from the force analysis of a beam element and to obtain the solutions for the deformations and internal forces of the geocell reinforcement. The validity of the present solutions was verified by the existing finite element method and power-series solutions.