Laboratory evaluation of dynamic behavior of steel-strip mechanically stabilized earth walls

Abstract

To investigate the influence of the peak acceleration, the loading duration, and the strip length on the dynamic behavior of steel-strip reinforced soil walls (SSWs), in terms of the dynamic reinforcement load distribution and the dynamic lateral earth pressure behind the surface, a series of 1-g shaking table tests was performed on five reduced-scale reinforced soil wall models. It was observed that the maximum axial force of the strips (Tmax) is mobilized at the intersection of the failure plane with strips in all rows. It was also discovered that, in the upper half of the walls, the Tmax values decrease with a decreasing strip length, while this trend is reversed in the lower half of the walls. Additionally, a proper convergence was found between the Tmax/H·γs·SV·SH and L/H′ ratio at different levels of acceleration and duration, so that Tmax/H·γs·SV·SH can be defined as a function of the L/H′ ratio and the seismic parameters for different rows of strips. On the other hand, it was observed that the values of earth pressure predicted by conventional methods under static and seismic conditions are too conservative and these methods predict the position of the resultant lateral force higher than the actual point.