ABSTRACT

In geotechnics, cells filled with natural materials are often used to build structure coming from civil engineering. A cell is generally a wire netting envelope cage filled with the site material (e.g. gravel, stones, or sand, including an appropriate geosynthetic sack, or adapted material such as a composite material). Cells are commonly called gabions and this technique is often used for the construction of retaining walls and noise protection structures, for hydraulic erosion protection, and for rockfall protection. The paper is dedicated to the description of cells filled with stones (Fig. 1). In order to explore the mechanical response of this kind of system under quasi static loading, DEM numerical modeling of the cell is presented and results coming from unconfined compression tests are exhibited.