Geocell Installation – Geocell Soil Stabilization
The following are our installation recommendations for our cellular confinement system. A base installation crew is comprised of (5) laborers and (1) supervisors.
1, Base Preparation
- Prepare subgrade based on engineer’s specification, remove debris and rocks.
- Geotextile is often recommended to separate fill materials from the subgrade. A woven or nonwoven fabric is selected depending on whether strength or permeability is important. Simply unroll the geotextile directly on the subgrade, overlapping adjacent panels by 30 to 60 cm.
2, Deploy Geocell
- Determine where the first section of Geocell is to be placed and choose the direction of the expansion of the Geocell panels based on the geometry of the area.
- Install a series of temporary stakes or pins over which selected edge cells would be hooked. Typical stakes are straight rebar or wood stakes that are 3 times the depth of the cell. Once the Geocells are filled, the stakes can be removed and re-used. If stakes cannot be used, sandbags, fill material, or installation frames can be placed on perimeter cells. Noose the edge of the section, stretch it to the maximum area and allow it to relax.
3, Infill material
The fill material should be selected to meet the project and earth properties. Fill the cells with a front-end loader or dump truck (caution: Excessive drop height might hurt the cells. Drop-height<1m is suggested) and push the fill into cells using shovels or a bulldozer blade. Continue until all cells are filled. Never allow any equipment to drive over the unfilled area. And always overfill the cells slightly to allow for consolidation.
4, Compact the fill material.
Depending on the nature of the aggregate, a vibratory roller and/or water may be required to achieve the desired compaction level. The most common method of compacting the aggregate is through multiple passes by tracked equipment.
Once the cells are filled and the aggregate compacted, the Geocell constructed base is ready to withstand heavy traffic loads.
