Nonlinear Elastic Analysis of Reinforcement Loads for Vertical Reinforced Soil Composites without Facing Restriction

Abstract

A nonlinear elastic method to analyze the reinforcement loads at the potential failure surface of a reinforced soil composite without facing restriction is developed in this study. The method makes use of the compatible deformations of soil and reinforcement at the potential failure surface and employs the hyperbolic stress-strain relationship to determine the tangential modulus of soil. Nonconstant Poisson’s ratio, nonlinear reinforcement load-strain behavior, and nonuniform reinforcement spacing can be taken into account. Effect of soil compaction is conveniently modeled by an equivalent compaction pressure and a pressure-dependent unloading-reloading Young’s modulus. The method can be implemented by a simple computer code. Four numerical model walls and four large-scale tests of reinforced soil composites were employed to validate the proposed method. It was shown that the method can be used to analyze the reinforcement loads of reinforced soil composites under working stress conditions. The method excludes the necessity to carry out sophisticated numerical analyses to determine the reinforcement loads.