Comparison experiments on geosynthetic-reinforced soil and geogrid-anchored sheet pile walls under strip footing surcharge loads

Scaled experiments were compared on geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls with a full-height facing (GRSWs) and geogrid-anchored sheet pile walls (SPWs). A strip footing surcharge load was applied. PIV analyses showed that, in both test series, two slip surfaces developed under the strip footing load: one from the inner edge, the other one from the outer edge of the strip footing. In the GRSWs, the slip surfaces were straight, and the angle with the horizontal was approximately π/4+φ/2. For the SPWs, the slip surfaces reoriented at the intersection with the geogrids and did not always remain straight. The GRSW model behaved stiffer than the geogrid-anchored SPW model for relatively high surcharge loads. The SPW-system behaviour was also stiffer when an extra geogrid anchor was installed at a lower level. This indicates that the soil-reinforcement interface frictional behaviour determines the system behaviour more than for example the reinforcement stiffness.