Long-Term Reinforcement Load of Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls

As increasing number of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) retaining walls are built for permanent purpose, and their long-term behaviors have become one of the most critical issues in design. However, there has been very limited study on long-term reinforcement load and its relation to various parameters of GRS walls. A finite-element procedure for the long-term response of geosynthetic-reinforced soil structures with granular backfills was first validated against the long-term model test. Extensive finite-element analyses considering the viscous properties of geosynthetic reinforcements were then carried out to investigate the load distributions in geosynthetic reinforcements of GRS walls under operational condition. Construction sequence was simulated and a creep analysis of 10 years was subsequently conducted on each model wall. The effects of wall parameters, including backfill soil, reinforcement length, reinforcement spacing, reinforcement stiffness, and creep rate of reinforcement were investigated. It is found from the analyses that: (1) the maximum reinforcement load of GRS walls under working stress condition was generally smaller than that estimated using the FHwA design but it is dependent on the global reinforcement stiffness Sglobal ; (2) the surface of maximum reinforcement load did not coincide with the Rankine’s surface suggested by FHwA design guidelines for vertical GRS walls and it was affected by the strength of backfill soil, reinforcement length, reinforcement spacing, and reinforcement stiffness; (3) for GRS walls under operational condition, reinforcement loads were closely related to the mobilized stiffness of backfill soil; (4) isochrone curves can be used to interpret the effects of reinforcement stiffness and creep rate on both short-term and long-term performances of GRS walls under operational condition, and with an increase in the reinforcement stiffness, the maximum reinforcement load increased; and (5) the global reinforcement stiffness Sglobal , which is related to the isochrones stiffness of reinforcement as well as reinforcement spacing was related to the total reinforcement load Ttotalmax and with an increase in the global stiffness, the total reinforcement load increased.