Internal Stability Analyses of Geosynthetic Reinforced Retaining Walls.

摘要

This research project was an effort to improve our understanding of the internal stress-strain distribution in GRS retaining structures. Our numerical modeling techniques utilized a commercially available element program, FLAC (Fast Lagragian Analysis of Continua). In this research, we investigated and appropriately considered the plane strain properties, the effect of low confining pressure on the soil dilation angle, and in-soil and low strain rate geosynthetic reinforcement properties. Modeling techniques that are able to predict both the internal and external performance of GRS wall simultaneously were developed. Instrumentation measurements such as wall deflection and reinforcement strain distributions of a number of selected case histories were successfully reproduced by our numerical modeling techniques. Moreover, these techniques were verified by successfully performing true 'Class A': predictions of three large-scale experimental walls. An extensive parametric study that included more than 250 numerical models was then performed to investigate the influence of design factors such as soil properties, reinforcement stiffness, and reinforcement spacing on GRS wall performance.