Rational approach for the analysis of segmental reinforced soil walls based on kinematic constraints

The paper presents an analytical method for the solution of reinforced soil walls in which the wall facing has a structural role. The three-component (soil–reinforcement–wall) system is statically indeterminate, and hence cannot be solved by equilibrium equations alone. The paper follows up on the work of Baker and Klein [2004. An integrated limiting equilibrium approach for design of reinforced soil retaining structures part I – formulation. Geotextiles and Geomembranes 22, 119–150] where an interaction model, incorporating factors that divide forces between the reinforcement layers and the wall, was introduced to solve the statically indeterminate system. In the current work, the division factors are resolved such that the kinematic constraints of compatibility between the reinforcement layers and the wall are satisfied. This is achieved by solving an optimization problem in which the objective function includes the relative displacement between the reinforcement layers and the wall. The resultant system is fully coupled whereby upper reinforcement layers are affected by the behavior of lower layers. As such, the method overcomes the limitation of the original framework in which the top-down procedure omits such coupling. A non-dimensional parametric study was conducted on walls with 10 face blocks (9 reinforcement layers). Results are given in a normalized manner for cases in which the reinforcement pullout stiffness is uniform and linearly increasing with depth. Analysis results show that in cases where the wall is relatively stiff compared to the reinforcement, the upper reinforcement layers are clearly affected by the lower layers (this is a direct outcome of the fully coupled system). On the other hand, when the relative stiffness of the wall is low, the system behavior tends towards that of a hinged system, which is statically determinate. In this case the solution becomes independent of the reinforcement pullout stiffness. Analysis results indicate that current design codes, which do not explicitly consider the structural role of the facing in the calculation procedure, may be overconservative in certain cases. This result supports the argument for introducing the structural role of the facing into design procedures.