Deformation analysis of reinforced soil retaining walls—simplisticversus sophisticated finite element analyses

摘要

Over the last two decades, different kinds ofmodular block have been increasingly used in the geogrid-reinforced soil retaining walls. The simulation of such wallbehavior, which involves interactions between differentstructural components and backfill soils, requires a rigorousnumerical procedure. Finite element is usually a preferredmethod, but this procedure, especially the soil constitutivemodels, is of different degrees of sophistication. It isalways an issue of how simple or sophisticated should ananalysis be conducted in replicating the actual behavior. Inthis article, a full-scale test wall was used to validatesimplistic and sophisticated finite element analyses. Dif-ferent types of finite element and material models wereused in the two kinds of analysis to differentiate the level ofsimplicity or sophistication. The results obtained fromstress-deformation analyses are presented and compared. Itis shown that for wall construction that involves staticloading conditions, simplistic nonlinear elastic andsophisticated elastoplastic analyses produced close andacceptable results.