Earth pressure coefficients for reinforcement loads of vertical geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining walls under working stress conditions

Based on the nonlinear elastic theory and stress-dilatancy theory, two earth pressure coefficients were proposed to analyze the reinforcement loads at the potential failure surface of vertical geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining walls under working stress conditions. The earth pressure coefficients take into account the force equilibrium and compatible deformations between soil and reinforcement, and can be obtained by solving two implicit functions by an iterative or graphic method. The effects of backfill compaction and facing restriction are taken into account in the earth pressure coefficients by two additional stress factors, which have been derived analytically using straightforward approaches. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, comparisons were made with the results from large scale tests and numerical simulations. It was demonstrated that the reinforcement loads predicted by the proposed methods were in good agreement with the experimental or numerical results.