• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.23-32
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• 2008

This paper presents the global stability of geosynthetic reinforced segmental retaining walls in tiered configuration. Four design cases of walls with different geometries and offset distances were analyzed based on the FHWA and NCMA design guidelines and the discrepancies between the different guidelines were identified. A series of global slope stability analyses were conducted using the limit-equilibrium analysis and the continuum mechanics based shear strength reduction method with the aim of identifying failure patterns and the associated factors of safety. The results indicated among other things that the FHWA design approach yields conservative results both in the external and internal stability calculations, i.e., lower factors of safety, than the NCMA design approach. It was also found that required reinforcement lengths are usually governed by the global slope stability requirement rather than the external stability calculations. Also shown is that the required reinforcement lengths for the upper tiers are much longer than those based on the current design guidelines.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.47-56
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• 2005

Recently, geosynthetic reinforced earth walls are gradually replacing conventional concrete retaining walls for reasons of economy, expediency of construction, and aesthetics. A number of reinforced soil walls having more than 10m heights have been constructed to make more effective development in the country. However, mistakes in design and construction of reinforced earth walls have resulted in many troubles such as failure of reinforced earth walls, horizontal deformationor breakdown of facings, and so forth during or after construction. In this paper, a case study on global sliding failure of a geogrid-reinforced tiered wall is carried out to investigate the causes of the failure and suggest the proper countermeasures. From the subsurface investigation and field instrumentation, It is found that the cause of the global sliding failure was occurred by decreasing of bearing capacity of foundation ground induced by infiltration of rainwater.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.199-206
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• 2005

Engineers have performed slope stability analyses, including Limit Equilibrium Analysis, Finite Difference Analysis and Finite Element Analysis. Each analysis results in different Factor of Safety(FS) for slopes. The comparison of FS results from these stability analyses has been carried out for various conditions, such as geometry of slopes, dry and fully saturated soils, nail and anchor reinforcements. Standard deviations of FS calculated from various slope analyses are 0.03 to 0.04 and 0.22 to 0.48 for the slopes without and with nail or anchor reinforcement, respectively. Construction of tiered concrete retaining wall in addition to nail or anchor reinforcement increases FS of 12% to 29% for fully saturated soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.13-21
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• 2005

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the effects of settlement of foundation on the behavior of geosynthetic-reinforced modular block walls in a tiered arrangement using the finite-element method of numerical analysis. A parametric study was performed by varing the foundation condition and offset distance between the tiers and reinforcement length of the lower and upper tier using varified finite-element model. The finite-element analysis provided relevant information on the mechanical behavior of the wall and interaction mechanism between the upper and lowers that was otherwise difficult to obtain from the limit-equilibrium analysis based current design approaches. Practical implications of the findings obtained from this study to current design approaches are discussed in great detail.