Lessons Learned from the Numerical Modelling of a Retaining wall with Non-Uniform Reinforcements

Abstract

A research program focused on the performance of a full scale test on a wrapped-face retaining wall reinforced by two types of reinforcement materials embedded in sand is presented. To evaluate the complex behavior of such structure, a 3.6 m high retaining wall was constructed and instrumented, then loaded to failure. Plane-strain numerical analysis have been performed using FLAC in order to model the reinforced soil structure taking into account the sequential bottom-up construction of the wall facing, soil, reinforcement and surcharge. This allowed to evaluate whether the measured stress-strain and collapse behavior of the wall can be fitted by the conventional limit-state equilibrium methods or if a more sophisticated method which takes into account the different linear stiffness of the reinforcements, such as the Displacements Method, must be used. To this purpose a new software has been developed and validated to perform reinforced walls stability analysis using different types of reinforcements and complex design scenarios. This research provides guidance to the design of retaining wall with non-uniform reinforcements.