• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.599-614
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• 2022

In this study, the reliability analysis of internal and external stabilities of Reinforced Soil Walls (RSWs) under static and seismic loads are investigated so that it can help the geotechnical engineers to perform the design more realistically. The effect of various variables such as angle of internal soil friction, soil specific gravity, tensile strength of the reinforcements, base friction, surcharge load and finally horizontal earthquake acceleration are examined assuming the variables uncertainties. Also, the correlation coefficient impact between variables, sensitivity analysis, mean change, coefficient of variation and type of probability distribution function were evaluated. In this research, external stability (sliding, overturning and bearing capacity) and internal stability (tensile rupture and pull out) in both static and seismic conditions were investigated. Results of this study indicated sliding as the predominant failure mode in the external stability and reinforcing rupture in the internal stability. First-Order Reliability Method (FORM) are applied to estimate the reliability index (or failure probability) and results are validated using the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method. The results showed among all variables, the internal friction angle and horizontal earthquake acceleration have dominant impact on the both reinforced soil wall internal and external stabilities limit states. Also, the type of probability distribution function affects the reliability index significantly and coefficient of variation of internal friction angle has the greatest influence in the static and seismic limits states compared to the other variables.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.251-258
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• 2008

The use of reinforced earth walls in permanent structures is getting it's popularity. Despite a number of advantages of reinforced earth walls over conventional concrete retaining walls, there exit concerns over long-term residual deformation when subjected to repeated and/or cyclic loads, during their service period. In this investigation, the effect of preloading in reducing long term residiual deformation of back-to-back reinforced soil wall under sustained and/or repeated loading enviormentment using a series of reduced-scale model tests. It is found that the preloading technique can be an effective means of controlling residual deformations of reinforced soils under varisous loading conditions.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.91-100
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• 1997

The soil nailing method has been developed on the basis of experimental works as well as theoretical backgrounds. As for the experimental research works, most of the data have been measured during the application of load in service. However, not only the soil-nailed structure behavior in service but also the failure behavior of the structure is major concern to evaluate and even establish a design method of soil-nailed walls. In this study, a relatively large-scale experiment was carried out to figure out the failure behavior of soil-nailed wall. A number of data such as displacement of soil-nailed walls, soil pressure in soil-nailed walls, atrial strain and axial force of nail etc.'have been acquired and analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2004

Laboratory model tests were conducted to assess the behavior characteristics of geogrid reinforced earth walls using fiber-mixed soil backfill with different surcharge loads and reinforcement spacing. The models were built in the box having dimensions, 100cm tall, 140cm long, and 100cm wide. The reinforcements used were geonet(tensile strength, 0.79t/m) and geogrid(tensile strength, 2.26t/m). Decomposed granite soil(ML) with or without polypropylene fiber was used backfill material. Strain gauges and LVDTs were installed on the retaining walls to measure the strain of the reinforcements and the displacements of the wall facings.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2015

Usually the analyses of structures are carried out by assuming the base of structures to be fixed. However, the soil beneath foundation alters the earthquake loading and varies the response of structure. Hence, it is not realistic to analyze structures by considering it to be fixed. The importance of soil-structure interaction was realized from the past failures of massive structures by neglecting the effect of soil in seismic analysis. The analysis of massive structures requires soil flexibility to be considered to avoid failure and ensure safety. Present study, considers the seismic behavior of multi-storey reinforced concrete narrow and wide buildings of various heights with and without shear wall supported on raft foundation incorporating the effect of soil flexibility. Analysis of the three dimensional models of six different shear wall positions founded on four different soils has been carried out using finite element software LS DYNA. The study investigates the differences in spectral acceleration coefficient (Sa/g), base shear and storey shear obtained following the seismic provisions of Indian standard code IS: 1893 (2002) (IS) and International building code IBC: 2012 (IBC). The base shear values obtained as per IBC provisions are higher than IS values.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

This paper proposes a new numerical approach to model geocell reinforced soils, where the geocell is described as membrane elements and the complex interaction between geocell and soil is realized by coupling their degrees of freedom. The effectiveness and robustness of this approach are demonstrated using two examples, i.e., a geocell-reinforced foundation and a large scale retaining wall project. The first example validates the approach against established solutions through a comprehensive parametrical study to understand the influence of geocell on the improvement of bearing capacity of foundations. The study results show that reducing the geocell pocket size has a strong effect on improving the bearing capacity. In addition, when the aspect ratio maintains the same value, the bearing capacity improvement with increasing geocell height is insignificant. Comparing with the field monitoring and measurement in the project, the second example investigates the application of the approach to practical engineering projects. This paper provides a practically feasible and efficient modelling approach, where no explicit interface or contact is required. This allows geocell reinforced soils in large scale project can be effectively modelled where the mechanism for complex geocell-soil interaction can be explicitly observed.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.235-261
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• 2009

This study illustrates the differences between the elasto-plastic cap model and Lade's model with Cosserat rotation through the analyses of two large-scale geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) retaining wall tests that were brought to failure using a monotonically increasing surcharge pressure. The finite element analyses with Lade's model were able to reasonably simulate the large-scale plane strain laboratory tests. On average, the finite element analyses gave reasonably good agreement with the experimental results in terms of global performances and shear band occurrences. In contrast, the cap model was not able to simulate the development of shear banding in the tests. In both test simulations the cap model predicted failure loads that were substantially less than the measured ones.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.541-548
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• 2002

This paper presents the results of stability analyses on soil-reinforced segmental retaining walls in a tiered arrangement. As-built design sections of four different walls were analyzed within the context of the limit equilibrium-based current design guidelines. The appropriateness of the original designs were then evaluated. Slope stability analyses against the compound failure mode, which Is frequently Ignored during design, were additionally peformed based on the method recommended by FHWA design guideline. The results indicate that the as-built designs of most of the walls examined do not meet the minimum factors of safety for the external and internal stabilities, and for the compound failure mode. The implications of the findings from this study are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.66-71
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• 2010

This paper studies the effect of saturation of backfill on the seismic stability of reinforced soil walls (RSWs) using centrifuge shaking table tests. For comparison, degradation of static stability and seismic stability of a RSW under unsaturated condition was also investigated. Test results showed that the RSW under saturated condition had enough static stability. However, seismic stability of saturated RSW significantly decreased as compared with that under unsaturated condition. The saturated model RSW did not collapse, though it showed large deformation. It maintained sufficient stability after shakings although a clear slip surface appeared in the backfill. Finally, it is discussed how to evaluate residual stability of RSWs damaged by earthquakes with test results and the simple evaluation method proposed by authors.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.909-935
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• 2014

The seismic characteristics of two semi-gravity reinforced concrete cantilever retaining walls are examined via an experimental program using an outdoor shake table (one with and the other without concrete masonry sound wall on top). Both walls are backfilled with compacted soil and supported on flexible foundation in a steel soil container. The primary damages during both tests are associated with significant lateral displacements of the wall caused by lateral earth pressure; however, no collapse occurs during the tests. The pressure distribution behind the walls has a nonlinear trend and conventional methods such as Mononobe-Okabe are insufficient for accurate pressure estimation.