Predicting the stability of a reinforced soil retaining wall by the generalized limit equilibrium method

摘要

The generalized limit equilibrium method recently extended for the analysis of reinforced soil structures offers the possibility to perform local and global stability analysis and estimate the corresponding factors of safety for elements of the soil-wall-reinforcement system. The method is applied in order to analyze the stability of a well documented case of a reinforced soil retaining wall. Computed values for the failure load present a remarkable stability for various reasonable assumptions concerning grid shape and friction angles and fall within a +-10 percent range from the actual failure load, thus indicating the reliability of the method for stability analysis.