Abstract
Secondary reinforcement has been proven to be effective in increasing the performance of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) walls under working stress conditions, enabling an eco-friendlier environment. However, the seismic responses of GRS walls with secondary reinforcements are still unclear. In this study, in-depth finite element analyses were used to investigate the seismic responses of GRS walls with secondary reinforcement subjected to earthquake motions. The numerical procedure was first validated using measurements obtained from both a field GRS wall with secondary reinforcement and benchmark large-scale shaking table tests. Then, the validated GRS walls procedure was utilized to explore the effects of secondary reinforcement length and stiffness, the vertical spacing of the primary reinforcement, and wall height on the seismic responses. Based on the study, the following findings can be drawn: (i) the secondary reinforcement length and stiffness under various wall heights and peak ground accelerations (PGAs) have a limited influence on the relative lateral facing displacement and acceleration amplification, however, they can significantly decrease the connection load and the maximum reinforcement load; (ii) increasing the length of the secondary reinforcement is more effective for reducing the connection load and the maximum reinforcement load than increasing the stiffness of the secondary reinforcement; (iii) the effect of secondary reinforcement is more evident for greater wall height, the larger vertical spacing of primary reinforcement, and smaller PGA; and (iv) GRS walls with secondary reinforcement could ease the acceleration amplification. The study has highlighted the salient effect of secondary reinforcement on GRS wall performance under seismic conditions.
Highlights
Geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) walls have been successfully used in many practical applications as alternatives to conventional retaining walls due to their good performance, lower cost, and economic efficiency
finite element method (FEM) givesreinforcement slightly smaller values the measured factors considered in this study include length andthan stiffness, the wall values.(H), These differences in of results are likely attributed to the soil strain-softening behavior, height andminor the vertical spacing the primary reinforcement layers
The effect of the secondary reinforcement length on the relative lateral facing displacement was normalized by the height
Summary
Geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) walls have been successfully used in many practical applications as alternatives to conventional retaining walls due to their good performance, lower cost, and economic efficiency. Experimentally and numerically, have been carried out to analyze the performance of GRS walls during seismic loading, including the relative lateral facing displacement, lateral earth pressure, crest settlement, acceleration amplification, and tensile reinforcement in reinforcement layers [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26] The results of these studies showed that critical factors including reinforcement length, wall height, soil stiffness, soil strength, earthquake motions, and reinforcement spacing played important roles in the performance of GRS walls during seismic loading. A parametric study was carried out to explore the effect of the secondary reinforcement length and stiffness, vertical spacing of the primary reinforcement, and wall height on the performance of the GRS walls after seismic loading by investigating relative lateral facing displacement, connection load, and maximum reinforcement load in primary reinforcement, and acceleration amplification. It is hoped that the results of this study can provide insights for the seismic design of GRS walls with secondary reinforcement
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