Laboratory evaluation of governing mechanism of frictionally connected MSEW face and implications on design

This paper presents a laboratory evaluation of purely frictionally connected geotextile and concrete facing block of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Wall (MSEW) systems. The study focuses on investigating the governing failure mechanism along the wall face, as determined from the pullout of reinforcement in between the facing blocks (herein referred as pullout mechanism) and sliding of the blocks over the geotextile, where the reinforcement stays stationery (herein referred as direct shear mechanism). A total of seventy-two tests were performed to investigate the effect of laboratory specimen size, difference in geotextile reinforcement, and repeatability of the test results. Overall, the results showed that at lower normal loads, sliding of the blocks over the geotextile reinforcement along the wall face is more likely to occur before the pullout of the geotextile in between the blocks. At higher normal loads, this order is reversed and pullout of the geotextile appears to occur first. The test results also indicated that the size of the specimen tested in the laboratory frictional connection evaluation has an effect on the measured connection strength.