Static Performance of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Walls with Peripheral Soil–Cement Mixtures

Abstract

Recently, much effort has been devoted to improving the performance of geosynthetic reinforced walls under various stress conditions. In this research, the effect of using cemented mixed soil as a backfill material is studied on the static response of geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) walls. For this, numerical models based on a finite-difference code are made according to one of the Royal Military College’s (RMC) full scale test walls with a segmental facing. Different arrangements of soil reinforcement are considered in the presence of cemented sandy soil and sandy soil alone. In the cement-treated approach, each reinforcement layer is surrounded by a 30 cm cemented sand soil. The results show that using cement-treated sandy soil decreases the maximum deformation of the wall by as much as 75% compared with the case where untreated sandy soil is used. Moreover, by using cemented soil around reinforcements, the reinforcement forces reduce considerably. Therefore, increasing the number of reinforcement layers in the backfill will decrease the face wall deformation as well as the reinforcement forces, which are not cost-effective in many situations. It is also suggested that using the cement-treated technique can be an efficient cost-saving method compared with common GRS walls.