Performance and bearing capacity of embankments reinforced with waste tires and geocells

In order to investigate the performance of with embankment slopes reinforced waste tires and geocells, the model tests on reinforced the embankment slopes with waste tires and geocells are carried out respectively, and the two different relative densities are considered. The results show that compared with the unreinforced soil embankment, the embankments reinforced with both waste tires and geocells can evidently improve bearing capacity and stability and reduce uneven settlement. The reinforced embankments effectively increase the diffusion angle of the additional stress, which makes the distribution of the additional stress become more uniform, and the difference between the additional stress on the center axis of the unreinforced soil embankment and that of the reinforced embankments decreases with the increase of the depth of embankment. The lateral displacements of the unreinforced and reinforced embankments firstly increase and then decrease with the increase of the depth of embankment, and the lateral displacement of the embankment with waste tires is the smallest. The reinforcement effect of waste tires and geocells decreases with the increase of the relative density, and the bearing capacity of the reinforced embankment is over 2 times higher than that of the unreinforced soil embankment under lower density, but less than 2 times under higher density. Finally, the relevant method for calculating bearing capacity of waste tires-reinforced foundation is proposed based on the method for calculating bearing capacity of geocell-reinforced foundation and the analysis of the reinforcement mechanism of waste tires.