Numerical Analysis of Working Properties and Inquiry of Design Method on Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls (GRS-RWs) with Rigid Facings

Geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall (GRS RW) with a gravity wall facing (GWF) is a new retaining wall system, which is also called GRS RW-RWF(rigid wall facing). The differences of GRS RW-RWF to the common GRS RW with a thin concrete slab facing lie in that the rigid wall facing has larger thickness and higher rigidity, which can restrain deformation of backfill soil and undertake soil pressure. In this paper, focusing on the high reinforced embankment retaining wall, which is common used in the newly constructed railways and highways passing mountainous areas in China, and taking two different construction procedures (namely construction procedure A: backfilling geosynthetic-reinforced soil after the pouring of rigid retaining wall, and construction procedure B: pouring rigid retaining wall after the backfilling of geosynthetic-reinforced soil) into account, the working properties of GRS RW-RWF are analyzed from a few aspects including stress and strain of reinforcement materials and backfilling soil, and deformation of rigid retaining wall. The results show that the lateral deformation of GRS RW-RWF is linear distributed along the height of retaining wall (the max. value occurs on the top of retaining wall). Construction procedure B is superior to procedure A, for it can give preferable play to the role of reinforcements, reduce the soil pressure acting on rigid retaining wall and control its deformation. Moreover, a design method for GRS RW-RWF is suggested, which refers to the Double Wedge Method to calculate soil pressure acting on the wall and the working strain of reinforcement to determine the required strength of geosynthetic reinforcement.