Wall Displacement of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Walls with Different Surcharge Loads - Model Test

This paper describes the results of model experiments in the laboratory, which were conducted to assess the behavior characteristics of geosynthetic reinforced soil walls according to different surcharge loads and reinforcement types. The model walls were built in the box having dimension, 100 cm tall, 140 cm long, and 100cm wide. Three types of geosynthetics, geonet, geogrid A and geogrid B, are used as the reinforcements. Decomposed granite soil (SM) was used as a backfill material. Seven model walls are constructed and tested. After the construction of the model wall, the LVDTs are installed to obtain the displacements of the wall face. As the results of the model tests, the maximum horizontal displacements of the model walls occurred due to uniform surcharge pressure were measured at the 0.7H from the bottom of the wall. The more the reinforcement strength increases, the more the wall displacements decrease, and also the reduction ratio of the wall displacement decrease with increasing the surcharge pressure.