Geometric parametric studies on reinforced soil gabion walls

Abstract

Gabion-faced retaining walls are semi-rigid structures that can generally accommodate large lateral and vertical movements without excessive structural distress. Because of this feature, they offer technical and economical advantage over the conventional concrete gravity-retaining walls. A finite-element code developed for the analysis of gabion-faced reinforced earth walls was validated and used to study the behaviour of gabion-faced reinforced soil walls under self-weight loading. Deformation aspects are highlighted in this paper as the recent trends in the design of retaining walls is to incorporate serviceability conditions. The effects of varying the spacing of reinforcement, the length of reinforcement and width of facing were studied on walls of three different heights: 3 m (low-height walls), 6 m (medium-height walls) and 9 m (high walls). Studies were also conducted to understand the effect of strip loading on these walls. The results from the studies may be of direct use to the design engineers at site in fixing the dimensions of gabion-faced reinforced soil walls.