A simplified working stress design method for reinforced soil walls

Abstract

A new method for the internal design of reinforced soil walls is developed based on working stresses conditions. This method is a simplification of Ehrlich and Mitchell's 1994 design procedure. The maximum reinforcement loads, Tmax, calculated using the new proposed method were compared with those calculated by the original method. The comparisons were performed considering a wide range of wall heights, reinforcement stiffnesses, compaction efforts and backfill soil parameters. The results show good agreement between the original and simplified methods (less than 5% variation). Moreover, the new simplified method was extended to include the effect of facing inclination, which was not available in the original procedure. Data from physical and numerical model studies were used to verify the predictability of the simplified method for walls with different heights, facing inclinations, reinforcement stiffnesses and backfill soil parameters. The results indicated that the simplified method is also capable of properly capturing Tmax when the face of the wall is inclined.