The Influence of Facing Stiffness on the Performance of Geogrid Reinforced Retaining Walls   Xiao-jing Feng State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering & Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, P. R. China fengxiaojing.ct@gmail.com Qing Yang State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering & Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, P. R. China qyang@dlut.edu.cn Shou-long Li State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering & Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, P. R. China dutlc@yahoo.cn Mao-tian Luan State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering & Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, P. R. China mtluan@dlut.edu.cn
			ABSTRACT

As mentioned by Bathurst (2006), consideration of the influence of the facing type on reinforcement loads is lacking in current limit equilibrium-based design methods for the internal stability design of geosynthetic reinforced soil walls. Also the displacement of walls and the strain of reinforcement are also related to the facing type. This paper reports the results of the three instrumented model walls. The walls were nominally identical except one wall was constructed with a rigid concrete block face, the other with a hinge joint wood face, and another with a flexible wrapped face. The displacement of wall face added with the increase of the stiffness of wall face under the same surcharge. The strain of the reinforcement was influenced by the facing stiffness, while the relation between them also effected by the loading type, backfill type etc. Under the strip load , the reinforcement strain in stiff-face wall was higher. The ductile of the wall failure was reduced with the increasing of facing stiffness.

Keywords: retaining walls, geogrid, silt, facing stiffness, wrapped face, hinged face.

Get the entire paper (pdf)     Go back to the TOC