Reliability and redundancy of the internal stability of reinforced soil walls

In the present study, a new methodology for reliability assessment of the internal stability of reinforced soil walls, taking into account the highly strength-redundant character of these structures, is suggested. Internal stability is probabilistically modeled as a series configuration and as an r-out-of-m configuration. Consideration of redundancy is formulated based on transitional probabilities and Markov stochastic processes. Following the suggested framework, the updated reliability of the structure, as failure propagates among the different layers of reinforcement, can be quantified. As an illustration of the developed methodology, an example of a reinforced soil wall is analyzed and results are discussed.