Analysis and Parametric Assessment of Reinforced Soil Wall

Abstract

Due to rapid urbanization and growth of countries, the rate of building infrastructures is also on the higher side. Owing to a lack of adequate high bearing capacity soil, one is forced to select regions with lower bearing capacity, which can cause long-term instability problems. Various improvement techniques available in the field of Civil Engineering or Geotechnical Engineering are to be adopted in such cases to avoid instability issues. One such well known method is Reinforced Soil wall that has been investigated and focused here. In this paper, an effort is made to compare numerical and analytical analysis, as well as to investigate their consistency and understand the effect of various parameters on its performance. The numerical analysis, which is based on Lee et al.’s lateral earth pressure theory, has been paired with an analytical one using the Finite element method (FEM) to evaluate its performance and efficiency in the field. Furthermore, various parameters such as reinforcing element length, soil friction angle, spacing, height of the wall, and maximum tensile forces produced have been considered, with their variations affecting the overall efficiency of the system being investigated. Further, an attempt has been made to understand the behavioural pattern by comparing the results using Regression Analysis. The findings from both analyses are very consistent and complement one another.