DEM Simulation of the Load Transfer Mechanism of a GRPS Embankment with a Fixed Geogrid Technique

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper considers DEM method to compare fixed geogrid in geogrid-reinforced and pile-supported (GRPS) embankments with unfixed geogrid in reinforced embankment and unreinforced ones. It is not very clear what is the novelty of this numerical simulation study, since it's obvious that fixed geogrid reinforced embankment is the latest scientific development and understandably superior unfixed geogrid embankments in some positions and for sure better than unreinforced variants.

In general, the article is well structured and clearly presented. The language is at a sufficient level to understand the essence of the article. Graphs, axes and data presented are neatly labeled throughout the article.

Author Response

Authors: Jun Zhang, Yafei Jia, Yewei Zheng and Chenxi Miao

Technical Paper: applsci-1381344

Title: DEM simulation on the load transfer mechanism of GRPS embankment with fixed geogrid technique

Date: September 2021

 

Reviewer #1：

Comments: The paper considers DEM method to compare fixed geogrid in geogrid-reinforced and pile-supported (GRPS) embankments with unfixed geogrid in reinforced embankment and unreinforced ones. It is not very clear what is the novelty of this numerical simulation study, since it's obvious that fixed geogrid reinforced embankment is the latest scientific development and understandably superior unfixed geogrid embankments in some positions and for sure better than unreinforced variants.

In general, the article is well structured and clearly presented. The language is at a sufficient level to understand the essence of the article. Graphs, axes and data presented are neatly labeled throughout the article.

 

Response: Thank you for the comment. The fixed geogrid technic has been applied to the GRPS project. Most of the current GRPS embankment field projects involved traditional reinforcement. Zhang et al. (2016) reported a construction case study of GRPS embankment using fixed geogrid technic. However, the load transfer mechanism of this technique is not clear. Further research is needed to investigate the load transfer mechanism in the GRPS embankments using the fixed ge-ogrid technique. The innovation of this study is to compare the advantages and disadvantages for unreinforced, traditional reinforced and fixed geogrid technologies, and use the DEM analysis to explore the effects of fixed geogrid technic. The influence of load transfer mechanism in GRPS embankment; reveals the effect of fixed geogrid technic from a meso-level perspective. Research results are helpful to understand the load transfer mechanism in GRPS embankments.

Reviewer 2 Report

1. It was written that the efficiency of the reinforcement material was increased compared to the traditional reinforcement technique. If so, please provide an additional explanation by quantitatively and specifically comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the comparison result with the traditional reinforcement technique. 2. What is the meaning the paragraph "to improve the efficiency of the reinforcement"? 3. Please provide a detailed explanation of the three discrete element method (DEM) models of pile-supported embankments in relation to the reinforcement effect of the geogrid using DEM constitutive equations. 4. Please explain the relationship between the stress tensors in Figure 8 and the displacement of the geogrid in the load transfer direction in Figure 15. 5. Please write the content of the abstract in connection with the content of the conclusion.

Author Response

Please see the attachmen

Author Response File: Author Response.docx