An experimental and numerical study is presented related to displacements and rotations of soil particles without and with geogrid reinforcement under the application of active lateral earth pressures. To this end, the measurement technique PIV has been used, with which digital images are processed to obtain displacement and rotation fields. The experimental earth pressure equipment has a transparent window which allows the recording of soil particle movements. The process and analysis of the measured soil particle movements allow the determination of yielded and not yielded soil areas. In this form, the position and geometry of the failure surface was determined and compared with the defined by plasticity theory of active Rankine states. This comparison is only possible for the case without geogrids since the presence of geogrids changes significantly the zone of soil yielding. Geogrids can reduce up to twice the volume of yielded soil due to the active lateral earth pressure. This conclusion related to the soil deformation is found to be in direct relation with the active lateral earth pressure reduction when geogrids are used as reinforced elements. In addition, a numerical analysis using the computational program Plaxis was performed to estimate horizontal displacements. The numerical results estimate reasonably well the horizontal displacements measured in terms of the general shape of the soil yielding area. However, they do not reproduce in detail the geometry of the failure surface.
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