Energy-based evaluation and data-driven method of stereoscopic geogrid–soil interface under cyclic loading

Stereoscopic geogrids with thickened transverse ribs offer superior mechanical interlocking together with load-bearing capacities to traditional planar geogrids. Geogrids with precisely thickened transverse ribs have been fabricated by 3D printing technology. The impact of Transverse-Rib Thickness (TRT) on cyclic shear hysteresis and energy dissipation at the stereoscopic geogrid–coarse particle interface was studied using large-scale direct shear tests and a deep learning-based data-driven method. Different normal stresses and numbers of shear cycles were set to reflect the contact pressure and stress history of the reinforced interface under cyclic loading. The results show that the thickened TRT improves the bearing resistance of the interface and prevents the interface cyclic shear strength from exhibiting the characteristics of a declining residual stage. The reinforcement preserves the stress–strain hysteresis characteristics of the interface under cyclic loading while also reducing its energy dissipation ratio compared to the unreinforced interface. A lower energy dissipation ratio is observed at the reinforced interface when using a stereoscopic geogrid and under increased normal stress. Combining the temporal feature extraction of the long short-term memory (LSTM) with the learnable basis function mapping of the Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (KAN) improves prediction accuracy. Shapley value analysis indicates the stable, independent positive effect of thickened transverse ribs on interface shear strength.