ABSTRACT
The always increasing patterns of vehicle traffic on roads, in all weather, sets that the maintenance and rehabilitation of infrastructures among the engineering key tasks for transport infrastructures. Furthermore, the need to guarantee high performance wilts increasing pavement life, has led research and industry to focus a greater attention on the use of pavement reinforcements. In recent years, numerous kinds of geosynthetic grids have been introduced on the market, which can be used for pavement reinforcement, extending extend pavement life, guaranteeing high performance and reducing costs of service and maintenance. The use of geosynthetics can produce several benefits, such as drainage, reinforcement, filter, separation and proof. In this paper, the effectiveness of geogrids as reinforcement was investigated. The study proposes a numerical investigation using a three-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) to analyze the importance, in terms of rutting at the top of pavement system, of geogrids in the behavior under wheel traffic loads on pavement. In the model, a multi-layer pavement structure was considered with a geogrid reinforcement and the model dimensions, element types and meshing strategies are taken by successive attempts to obtain desired accuracy and convergence of the study. FEM results show that a geogrid reinforcement can provide lateral confinement at the bottom of the base layer by improving interface shear resistance and reduce rutting at the top of pavement system.
