Research Projects

In Geotechnical Engineering, the concept of reinforcing soil has been practiced for years, with geocells being a relatively young 3-dimensional, honeycombing, interconnected reinforcement. Geocells are eco-friendly but have a high environmental impact due to their petroleum by-product production and post-life disassembly. In this situation, the 'Jute-Cell' could be an excellent replacement for geocells. The 'Jute-Cell' would be made of jute and assembled with cotton/jute thread, making it eco-degradable throughout production and use. India's large jute production makes the price and supply of jute-cells lower and more plentiful, leading to lower construction costs, strengthened rural economies, and a flourishing jute industry. This experimental investigation aims to evaluate pavement capacity simulated through load-deformation behavior of a surface footing. Foundation beds will be created in layers following standard practice, with steel plates with a 150 mm diameter and 10 mm thickness used on various configurations. The foundations will be created in a steel tank to ensure the foundation's performance is not affected by boundary walls. Different monotonic loads will be applied to the rigid plate to study load-deformation behavior. The experimental program will be conducted under various test series to investigate the influence of different parameters, with only one parameter being varied in each series.