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REHABILITATION OF NATIONAL HIGHWAY DAMAGED BY RAIN USING

GEOSYNTHETICS IN HILLY TERRAIN – A CASE STUDY

S D Vedpathak, G N Dalmia and S P Bagli

Strata Geosystems (India) Pvt. Ltd.
[email protected]; [email protected] &
[email protected]

A C Bordoloi
P.W. Buildings and NH Department, Government of Assam
[email protected]

ABSTRACT
Geosynthetics are increasingly used in the design of flexible paved pavement sections. One style
of geosynthetics best suited for pavement applications is the geocell. Geocells are unique three-
dimensional rhomboidal cellular confinement systems whose characteristics provide additional
rigidity to the pavement structure. The walls of the geocells are perforated to effectively facilitate
drainage. Incorporating the infilled geocell within any granular component of a flexible
pavement on a weak subgrade improves the resilient modulus of the layer. This reduces the
strains at critical point between the base course and the bituminous layers and at the subgrade
level. Hence pavement thickness can be reduced and / or the life of the pavement can be
extended according to the designer’s requirements. The authors present a case study where
geocells have been effectively used in reconstruction of the National Highway NH-44 traversing
over hilly and forested terrain across the Assam – Tripura border, which was destroyed during
torrential rain since March 2016 and to-and-fro traffic was badly affected. The affected section
was between Malidoor (Assam-Meghalaya border) and Churaibari (Assam-Tripura border). NH-
44 is the only road connecting Tripura to the rest of country. The CBR of the subgrade along the
damaged section was reported as low as 0.50% with traffic as high as 20msa. Rehabilitation was
designed and executed with the judicious use of geocells, woven and Non-woven geotextiles.
The work was executed jointly by PW (Buildings and NH) Division of Assam and Strata
Geosystems (India) Pvt. Ltd. This Paper records the design, construction and performance of the
highway reconstructed with geocells and geotextiles.

BACKGROUND
The National Highway NH-44 is a major artery for the North East India. The stretch between
Malidoor at the Assam–Meghalaya State border and Churaibari at the Assam–Tripura State
border is crucial for Tripura. Because of Tripura’s peculiar geography, NH-44 is its crucial life-
line for supplies and victuals, the only land connect with the rest of the country. Satellite imagery
of the location is shown in Fig. 1.
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FIGURE 1 Satellite imagery of the location

PROBLEM
The highway was damaged near Churaibari on the Assam side of the border. The subgrade of the
highway is highly plastic but weak clayey soil. The area traverses forested and undulating terrain
and drainage was an issue which was compounded by subgrade of low permeability. There were
heavy downpours in the month of March 2016, which completely damaged the stretch of about
1500m and made it was difficult for vehicles to ply. Figure 2 shows the extent of the damaged
highway. Conventional repairs proved unsuccessful. With the bottleneck of stranded vehicles
the situation turned chaotic and untenable with blockage of all goods to Tripura and virtual
isolation from the rest of the country.

FIGURE 2(a) Damaged stretch through the dense forest

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FIGURE 2(b) Actual site condition

OBJECTIVE
In view of Strata Geosystems (India) Pvt. Ltd.’s known expertise in geosynthetics and
pavements, the Assam PW (Buildings & NH) Department called upon Strata and appraised it of
the problem in June 2016. By then the issue was a matter of serious concern with the Central
Government, with the prices of essential commodities including fuel and food items
skyrocketing even beyond imagination. There were two essential issues to be addressed.
a) Drainage of the pavement section and its subgrade;
b) Strengthening the pavement section.
Both these concerns were deliberated upon by Strata while recommending StrataWeb® geocells
within the pavement section. The perforated geocells when infilled with granular material
provide an excellent drainage medium and prevent build-up of pore water pressures.
Owing to logistics problems created by the rains, the geosynthetic materials including
StrataWeb® geocells could reach the affected site only by the end of July 2016. However the
rehabilitation work commenced immediately, to be completed within fifteen days, adequately
enough for free flow of traffic.
DESIGN ANALYSIS
On the basis of the soil test carried out at the site by the Assam PW (Buildings & NH) Division
officials, the following parameters highlighted in Table 1 were considered in design analysis.
TABLE 1 Parameters considered in analysis

Sr.
Parameters Units Values
No.
1 Subgrade CBR % 0.50
2 Traffic MSA 20
3 Internal friction of the geocell infill material passing through 40mm ° ≥32
down IS sieve
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The flexible pavement was modeled as an elastic multilayer structure. Accordingly stresses and
strains are computed at critical locations mentioned in Fig. 3.

FIGURE 3 Critical locations for computing strain values

Generally thicknesses of the pavement and its various components are conventionally
determined using IRC: 37-2012 “Guidelines for the Design of Flexible Pavements” [1]. The
objective was to strengthen the pavement section. This objective could be achieved with the
appropriate application of geocells. Several researchers have confirmed the efficacy of geocells
in pavement construction [2-3]. However, there is paucity of case studies for evaluating the
performance of geocells [4].
With the proposed geocells, the possibility of rutting would be greatly reduced with the added
advantage of providing an economic section. In case of flexible pavements, excess horizontal
tensile strains cause reflective cracking over the bitumen surface and vertical strains causes
rutting. Hence it is significant to evaluate the horizontal strain at the bottom of bituminous layer
and vertical strain at the granular sub-base / sub-grade junction only.
To compute limiting strain for a given traffic is calculated based on following equations for
fatigue life and rutting life for 80 % and 90% of reliability.

( ) ( ) (1)

( ) (2)

( ) ( ) (3)

( ) (4)
where,
Nf and Nr are the design fatigue life and rutting life in msa respectively.
εt and εv are horizontal tensile strain and vertical subgrade strain respectively.
MR is the resilient modulus of the bituminous layer.
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Based on the equations 1-4 charts were prepared for corresponding limiting strains values v/s
different design traffic in msa (traffic ranging from 1msa to 150msa). These charts are shown in
Fig. 4.

FIGURE 4(a) Permissible horizontal tensile strain values v/s traffic in msa
Horizontal tensile strain values are dependent on the modulus of bituminous layer. The viscosity
gradient and the temperature variation affect the strain value. In Fig. 4(a) a small bend at 30msa
is a result of the variation of viscosity gradient and temperature of the bituminous mix.

FIGURE 4(b) Permissible vertical subgrade strain values v/s traffic in msa
Based on Fig. 4(a) and 4(b) typical values for permissible strain limit are shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2 Limiting strains for conventional section
Description Value
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i. Horizontal tensile strain at the junction of the 297.97 x 10 micro-strain units
bituminous layer and granular base
ii. Vertical subgrade strain at the junction of the 577.73 x 10-6 micro-strain units
granular sub-base and subgrade
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It was proposed by Strata Geosystems to design road section with a two layers of StrataWeb®
Geocell SW356-150 infilled with granular sub-base (GSB) material above the subgrade.
Geocells were proposed within Granular Sub-base layer. Modulus of the portion of the layer
within which geocells were placed was increased by a Modulus Improvement Factor (MIF).
Computations are repeated with IRC recommended IITPAVE software with the appropriate
moduli values. Varying the thicknesses by trial and error, the section of geocell reinforced
pavement was arrived at as shown in Figure 5.

FIGURE 5 Geocell reinforced section (CBR – 0.5%, 20msa)

The geotextile layer below prevents inter-mingling of the in-filled GSB within the geocells and
the clay of the subgrade. Material properties for analysis of a geocell reinforced section are
shown in Table 3.
TABLE 3 Material properties for StrataWeb® geocell section

Elastic Poisson’s Layer

Layer Description Modulus Ratio Thickness
(MPa) (μ) (mm)
i. Bituminous Concrete (BC) 1700 0.4 25
ii. Dense Bituminous Macadam (DBM) 1700 0.4 50
iii. Granular Base (G. Base) 183.84 0.35 350
iv. Granular Sub-base (G.S.B) SW356-150 65.85 0.35 350
v. Subgrade 5 0.35 -
Computed strain values for the geocell reinforced section are shown in Table 4. The geotextile
for separation, shown in Figure 4 below the GSB is not considered for computing strains.
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TABLE 4 Computed strains for StrataWeb® section

Description Value
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i. Horizontal tensile strain at the junction of the bituminous 179.8 x 10 micro-strain units
layer and granular base
ii. Vertical subgrade strain at the junction of the granular 569.4 x 10-6 micro-strain units
sub-base and subgrade
DISCUSSION
The computed strain values for the geocell reinforced section are less than the limiting strain
values for conventional section as shown in Table 5.
TABLE 5 Comparison of strain values for Conventional and StrataWeb® section
Description Conventional section Geocell section
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i. Horizontal Tensile Strain 297.97 x 10 179.8 x 10-6
ii. Vertical subgrade strain 577.73 x 10-6 569.4 x 10-6
CONSTRUCTION
Owing to logistics problems owing to rains, the geosynthetic materials including the StrataWeb®
geocells could reach the affected site only by the end of July 2016. However thereafter,
rehabilitation work commenced immediately. Remnants of the existing road were scrapped off.
The subgrade was dressed, levelled and compacted. A nonwoven was placed above the
compacted surface to prevent intermingling of the engineered section with the weak plastic
subgrade. Work was executed over half the width of the carriageway while allowing whatever
traffic that can painfully move, to pass along the other side. Construction up to the GSB above
the geocell took about two weeks for the completion. The construction sequence is shown in the
Fig. 6.

FIGURE 6(a) Laying of Nonwoven geotextile on FIGURE 6(b) StrataWeb® geocells being infilled
dressed subgrade with graded aggregate
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FIGURE 6(d) Pavement without bituminous

FIGURE 6(c) Granular base being compacted
topping
The geocell solution by Strata allowed immediate movement of vehicular traffic. Amidst the
heavy downpour in mid-August, the Authorities decided to assess the performance of the system
under regular traffic and put-off asphalting the surface. The highway was opened to traffic for all
class of vehicles directly over the granular base was laid. Figure 7 shows uninterrupted heavy
traffic movement during heavy downpour. Subsequent to the mid-August downpour and opening
up to regular traffic, no undulation or settlements were observed on the unpaved section.

FIGURE 7 Continuous traffic movements over geocells during monsoons

Thereafter, the surface was asphalted and work was deemed completed. The finished asphalted
surface is shown in Fig. 8. Post construction visual observations were carried out. After one year,
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with conditions including the 2017 heavy monsoons, the condition of the same stretch (Figure 9)
has proven the effectiveness of the geocell reinforced system.

FIGURE 8 Finished asphalted surface

FIGURE 9 Finished surface after one year

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No distress in the pavement was observed indicating overall good performance of the road.
Assam PW (Buildings and NH) Department has candidly acknowledged the performance of road
in one of its publications, stating “The NH-44 at Churaibari once became infamous for mud and
slash is now transforming into heaven of natural beauty. All this has been made possible by the
use of geocell in road construction.”
CONCLUSIONS
1. Pavements with high traffic intensity and low CBR subgrade can be effectively designed
with geocells.
2. Geocells enhance the life of pavement thereby reducing the maintenance cost. Riding quality
of the highway also improves to a great extent.
3. While this case study addressed rehabilitation, geocells do reduce initial costs where the
traffic intensities are high and the subgrade CBR is poor. Life cycle costs are invariably
reduced.
4. With a leaner cross section, the pavement section can be laid faster. As this case study
highlights, geocells are indispensable for providing quicker access during emergencies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors would like to thank Strata Geosystems (India) Pvt. Ltd. and the Assam Public Works
(Building and NH) Department for extending their cooperation for preparing this paper.
REFERENCES
1. IRC 37:2012, Guidelines for the design of flexible pavements (Third Revision), Indian Road
Congress.
2. Chandan Basu & Jitendra Kumar Soni (2012), Design Approach for geocell reinforced
flexible pavements, Highway Research Journal, pp. 1-7.
3. Sireesh S., Vijay Kumar R, V. Suraj and Anand J Puppala (2013), Repeated Load Tests on
Geocell Reinforced Sand Subgrades, Geosynthetics Conference, Long Beach, California,
USA, pp. 400-409.
4. Rajagopal, K., Chandramouli, S., Parayil, A., & Iniyan, K. (2014). Studies on geosynthetic-
reinforced road pavement structures. International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering,
8(3), pp. 287-298.