Design of brick-faced retaining walls reinforced with geotextiles

Abstract

Since the 1960s, retaining structures with reinforced backfill have undergone a remarkable development. Although important progress has been made regarding understanding of their behaviour, much remains to be done, especially on their design. The work described herein aims to contribute to the development of a design method for brick-faced reinforced retaining walls that should be very simple to use. A study was carried out by using some known methods of analysis, and by comparing the results obtained with the behaviour already known for this type of wall from previous laboratory and numerical studies. Both Rankine's and Coulomb's modified approach were used, and also three other methods allowing potential failure surfaces that were planar, circular and bilinear in shape. The comparative studies performed showed good predictions when a circular or a bilinear failure surface was considered, although the latter method allows a more versatile definition of the potential failure surface.