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Seismic effects on reinforcement load and lateral deformation of geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls

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Abstract

Current design methods for the internal stability of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) walls postulate seismic forces as inertial forces, leading to pseudo-static analyses based on active earth pressure theory, which yields unconservative reinforcement loads required for seismic stability. Most seismic analyses are limited to the determination of maximum reinforcement strength. This study aimed to calculate the distribution of the reinforcement load and connection strength required for each layer of the seismic GRS wall. Using the top-down procedure involves all of the possible failure surfaces for the seismic analyses of the GRS wall and then obtains the reinforcement load distribution for the limit state. The distributions are used to determine the required connection strength and to approximately assess the facing lateral deformation. For sufficient pullout resistance to be provided by each reinforcement, the maximum required tensile resistance is identical to the results based on the Mononobe-Okabe method. However, short reinforcement results in greater tensile resistances in the mid and lower layers as evinced by compound failure frequently occurring in GRS walls during an earthquake. Parametric studies involving backfill friction angle, reinforcement length, vertical seismic acceleration, and secondary reinforcement are conducted to investigate seismic impacts on the stability and lateral deformation of GRS walls.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52078185, 51878248, and 41630638).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Geomechanics and Embankment Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Fei Zhang, Yuming Zhu & Yanbo Chen

  2. Jiangsu Province’s Geotechnical Research Center, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Fei Zhang, Yuming Zhu & Yanbo Chen

  3. Southwest Jiaotong University, Key Laboratory of High-speed Railway Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Shangchuan Yang

Authors
  1. Fei Zhang
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  2. Yuming Zhu
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  3. Yanbo Chen
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Correspondence to Yanbo Chen.

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Zhang, F., Zhu, Y., Chen, Y. et al. Seismic effects on reinforcement load and lateral deformation of geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls. Front. Struct. Civ. Eng. 15, 1001–1015 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-021-0734-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-021-0734-8

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