Comparison of Seismic Responses of Geosynthetically Reinforced Walls with Tire-Derived Aggregates and Granular Backfills
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 11
Abstract
This paper reports the seismic responses of geosynthetically reinforced walls with two types of backfills using shake table tests. The backfills are tire-derived aggregates (TDA) and poorly graded sand, respectively. Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls with reinforced TDA backfill have not been fully tested under seismic conditions. In this study, two geosynthetically reinforced walls are tested on a one-dimensional shake table. A section of reduced-scale MSE wall (1.6 m high, 1.5 m deep, and 1.5 m long) is built in a box that is anchored on a shake table that can generate earthquake excitations obtained from actual field recordings. Layers of geogrid are used as reinforcement. The geosynthetic reinforcement is based on static external and internal stability design. In each test, the segmental MSE wall is instrumented with accelerometers, linear variable differential transformers, linear potentiometers, and dynamic soil stress gauges to record the accelerations, wall vertical deformations, horizontal deflections of the wall face, and transient effective stresses during the shaking, respectively. The experimental study reveals the advantageous seismic performances of a geosynthetically reforced wall with TDA backfill over an MSE wall using traditional granular backfill.
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Acknowledgments
This research is funded by the California State University, Fresno. The authors appreciate the support of Steve Scherer, research technician in the Department of Civil and Geomatics Engineering at CSU Fresno, who helped design and build the soil box and set up the data acquisition system. We also thank Cameron Wright of the West Coast Rubber Recycling (Gilroy, CA) for donating the tire derived aggregates, Willie Liew of Tensor International for donating the geogrid and providing the in-situ geogrid installation specifications, and Dr. Mengjia Li of GSE World for donating the geotextile. Prof. Thomas Attard designed and helped build the shake table, and Prof. Jie Han provided advice during the test preparation. The authors sincerely appreciate these support. The authors also appreciate the three anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments to improve the quality of this manuscript.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 24 • Issue 11 • November 2012
Pages: 1368 - 1377
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 6, 2011
Accepted: Mar 7, 2012
Published online: Mar 10, 2012
Published in print: Nov 1, 2012
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