NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT OF SURCHARGE ON THE MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF GEOCELL REINFORCED RETAINING WALL

Abstract

Geocell reinforced retaining structure has been widely used in civil engineering for theprotection of slopes due to its advantages. In this paper, the effects of surcharge on the horizontaldisplacement of the wall back, the size of the sliding wedge and the factor of safety of geocellreinforced retaining wall are numerically analyzed by employing the geotechnical finite elementmethod software Plaxis. The research results show that, when the distance of surcharge from thewall face is small, the maximum and the minimum deformation of the wall back takes place nearthe top of the wall and the wall bottom respectively. After the distance of surcharge from the wallface exceeds about 13% of the wall height, the surcharge has little effect on the horizontaldeformation of the wall back, the size of the sliding wedge and the safety factor of geocellreinforced retaining wall. The horizontal deformation of the wall back gradually increases with theincrease of the length of the surcharge until it reaches a certain value. The effect of the length ofthe surcharge on the failure surface is not significant. Besides, the factor of safety of the wallgradually decreases with the increase of length of the surcharge. However, with the increase of thedistance of the surcharge from the wall face, the influence of the length of the surcharge on thesafety factor gradually becomes small. The study results can supplement theoretical basis for thedesign of geocell reinforced retaining walls in engineering practices.