Creep Behavior of a Five Meter Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Retaining Wall

Abstract

There are many civil engineering projects in Taiwan that utilize geosynthetic reinforced soil retaining walls (GRSRW). Usually, a reduction factor is used to avoid creep from the reinforcements over the duration of the structure's lifetime at the designing phase. However, GRSRW are composed of reinforcements and backfill soils, which are relatively complicated in considering the soil-structure interactive creep behavior. Questions are consequently rising: If there is creep deformation of a GRSRW, is it coming from soil creep? What would be the total amount of the deformation after years? Is the amount acceptable by civil engineers? Are the tensile forces in the reinforcements increased with time? The complex soil-reinforcement interactive creep behavior of GRSRW can be analyzed by using finite element method to get more know-how. With the aim of understanding the creep behavior of GRSRW, the PLAXIS finite element computer program, which contains suitable models for time-dependent behavior, is employed in this study to simulate the creep behavior of a 5 meter standard designed GRSRW. The predicted results obtained from the PLAXIS simulation can be used to evaluate and to handle the creep behavior of GRSRW.