Tensile Force Distribution And Development Within Geogrid-Reinforced Retaining Wall

Abstract Geogrid-reinforced earth retaining walls used to improve soil quality, and provide additional shear strength in the soil mass through the tensile strength in the reinforcement layers. A numerical model was developed by finite element code PLAXIS2D, of a segmental facing geogrid-reinforced retaining wall. This research has been carried out to investigate the effect of loading increments, loading increments width, loading increments location, facing inclination angle, geogrid inclination angle, and geogrid-soil friction factor, on the behaviour of a geogrid-reinforced soil retaining wall. The results show that the failure plane occurred in the reinforced zone at the mid-height, this observation contradicted the triangular distribution with depth assumed in conception methodologies for reinforced soil retaining wall. The distribution of peak tensile strength with depth was bilinear at high loading increments and became trapezoidal at low loading ones. Furthermore, it was found that the behaviour of a geogrid-reinforced soil retaining wall is independent of loading increments width beyond 0.5H. It also seems that the loading increments location can change the shape and the position of the peak tensile strength. It also seems that the geogrid inclination angle has a major effect on the lateral facing displacements and safety factor.