Investigation of the Mechanical Behaviour of the Interface between Soil and Reinforcement, via Experimental and Numerical Modelling

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interface properties between soil and reinforcement, via experimental and numerical modelling of reinforced slopes. In particular, several scale models were built and tested under enhanced gravity in the geotechnical drum centrifuge at ETH Zurich and corresponding prototype numerical models were analyzed via a finite element stress analysis code. Optical fibre sensors were attached on the reinforcement layers of the experimental scaled models in order to measure linear strain during the increase of the g-level, and the results were compared to linear strain that was derived by the numerical analysis of the correspondent prototype reinforced slopes. The interface between soil and reinforcement was expressed in terms of normal and shear stiffness on the soil-reinforcement boundary and different values were tested in order to achieve validation of the experimental and numerical results.