Selecting reinforced fill soil for MSE retaining walls

摘要

Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) retaining walls on public sector transportation projects are generally conservatively designed with "low fines" reinforced soils. Private MSE walls are less conservatively designed, and use a variety of reinforced soils (NCMA recommends 35% < 0.075mm or greater). It is also clear from the literature that the combination of reinforced soil consisting of fine-grained soils (either "high" fines or "high" plasticity) and water in the reinforced zone were the principal reasons for serviceability problems (excessive deformation) or failure (collapse).