Numerical analysis of the behaviour of mechanically stabilized earth walls reinforced with different types of strips

Abstract A mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall behaves as a flexible coherent block able to sustain significant loading and deformation due to the interaction between the backfill material and the reinforcement elements. The internal behaviour of a reinforced soil mass depends on a number of factors, including the soil, the reinforcement and the soil/structure interaction and represents a complex interaction sol/structure problem. The use of parameters determined from experimental studies should allow more accurate modelling of the behaviour of the MSE structures. In this article, a reference MSE wall is modelled from two points of view: serviceability limit state “SLS” and ultimate limit state “ULS”. The construction of the wall is simulated in several stages and the soil/interface parameters are back analysed from pullout tests. An extensive parametric study is set up and permits to highlight the influence of the soil, the reinforcement and the soil/structure parameters. The behaviour of MSE walls with several geosynthetic straps is compared with the metallic one. Several constitutive models with an increasing complexity have been used and compared. The results obtained from stress-deformation analyses are presented and compared. The use of geosynthetic straps induces more deformation of the wall but a higher safety factor. To design theses walls the important parameters are: the soil friction, the cohesion, the interface shear stiffness and the strip elastic modulus. It is shown that for wall construction that involves static loading conditions, the modified Duncan–Chang model is a good compromise but induces slightly lower strip tensile forces due to the fact that it do not take into account of dilatancy before failure.

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