New Method for Prediction of Loads in Steel Reinforced Soil Walls
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 130, Issue 11
Abstract
The paper describes a new working stress design methodology introduced by the writers for geosynthetic reinforced soil walls (K-Stiffness Method) that is now extended to steel reinforced soil walls. A large database of full-scale steel reinforced soil walls (a total of 20 fully instrumented wall sections) was used to develop the new design methodology. The effects of global wall stiffness, soil strength, reinforcement layer spacing, and wall height were investigated. Results of simple statistical analyses using the ratio of measured to predicted peak reinforcement loads (i.e., method bias) demonstrate the improved prediction accuracy. The AASHTO Simplified Method results in an average method bias of 1.1 with a coefficient of variation (COV) of 45%, whereas the proposed K-Stiffness Method results in an average bias of 0.95 and a COV of 32%. Soil strength was found to have limited influence on reinforcement loads for steel reinforced soil walls, especially for high shear strength soils, while global wall stiffness and wall height had a major influence on reinforcement loads.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 130 • Issue 11 • November 2004
Pages: 1109 - 1120
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 ASCE.
History
Published online: Oct 15, 2004
Published in print: Nov 2004
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