Numerical investigation on differential settlements of geosynthetic reinforced soil walls under various surcharge loading scenarios

A series of numerical analyses was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of reinforcement parameters on the differential settlements between geosynthetic (geogrid) reinforced soil (GRS) wall facing and reinforced zone under various surcharge loads. Numerical modeling was verified considering data from a full-scale GRS physical model wall. The effects of length, stiffness, and vertical spacing of geogrids were studied in ۱۷ short (۸ m) and ۱۶ tall (۲۰ m) GRS walls using finite element analyses. Stage construction was considered in all analyses, and reinforced soil was also modeled using a hardening soil constitutive model with small-strain stiffness (HS-small). The results indicated that increasing the ratio of geogrid length to wall height (L/H) had a minor effect on decreasing differential settlements at the top of short and tall GRS walls. Increasing geogrid stiffness (J) was a more effective method than decreasing vertical spacing (Sv) to reduce relative settlements in all short and tall models. Furthermore, the effectiveness of J and Sv values was reduced with increasing surcharge loads. Moreover, the effectiveness of reinforcement parameters and normalized settlement values illustrated a considerable difference between the performance of short and tall GRS walls.

کلیدواژه ها:

Numerical modeling ، Geosynthetics ، GRS walls ، Tall walls ، Differential settlements.