Analysis of sand slopes stabilized with facing of soil bags with extended reinforcement strips

摘要

A limit-equilibrium-based stability analysis method was developed to simulate thenstability of unreinforced sand slopes and geosynthetic-reinforced sand slopes that had been stabilizednwith soil bags stacked on the slope face. The stability of unreinforced and reinforced sand slopesnwhen loaded with a rigid strip footing placed on the slope crest was evaluated by performing physicalnmodel tests. The stabilizing effects of an inclined stacked soil bag facing with extended reinforcementnstrips (tails) were confirmed. The results of limit-equilibrium analyses showed good agreement withnthe physical model test results. A parametric study performed using the proposed method also revealednthat the effects of the soil bag inclination angle, Ab, and internal friction angle of the backfill soil, u0001s,non the slope stability of the unreinforced and reinforced sand slopes are significant. The ultimatenfooting loads observed in five physical model tests on reinforced and unreinforced slopes can bensimulated by the proposed analysis method when using a single ‘operational’ friction angle (u0001op) thatnis 82 to 86% of the peak internal friction angle obtained from conventional drained plane strainncompression tests (namely, u0001p) under low pressure levels as in the unloaded model slope. This ratio ofnu0001op/u0001p is consistent with the value found in stability analyses of reinforced and unreinforced shallownsand slopes reported in the literature.