GEOTEXTILE REINFORCED RETAINING WALLS: DISCUSSION OF INSTRUMENTED LARGE

SCALE TEST WITH RESPECT TO THE VERIFICATION OF DESIGN CONCEPTS

B. GRAF, J.A. STUDER

GSS GLAUSER STUDER STUESSI, CONSULTING ENGINEERS INC., ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

1. INTRODUCTION

To conserve the landscape in the construction of new arterial roads it is

becoming more and more necessary to employ deep cuts with a long service
life and high reliability using steep artificial slopes for stabilization.
Such slope stabilization can be built with relatively low expenditure, if
the excavated material is used as fill material and the fill material is
strengthened by geotextile reinforcement. High standards are required for
the safety and durability of such permanent slopes. Besides the fact of
relatively low costs for geotextile reinforced retaining walls (compared
to the expenses for conventional retaining walls), the total construction
expenditure can be high (long and deep cuts). The above mentioned require-
ments are arguments for the need of a consistent, verified design concept
for geotextile reinforced slopes. To the best of our knowledge, such a
concept does yet not exist.

On the other hand, geotextile reinforced structures have been built

successfully for a long time. However, with respect to safety and relia-
bility, this construction method has been mostly used and accepted for
less important structures (for example low and/or temporary embankments).

Against the application of geotextile reinforcement for high and steep

slopes, however, with a service life of 50-100 years, the following argu-
ments are used:

- Insufficient permanence of geotextiles against UV-radiation,

- Susceptible in the case of acts of sabotage,

- Insufficient knowledge about ageing and related changes of material

strength for geotextiles,

- Aesthetics,

- Maintenance.

Mostly it is suggested, to compensate for these almost incontrollable in-

fluences on the stability and durability of such structures, by appropri-
ate reductions of the material strengths in the static analysis, appropri-
ate construction methods (lining) and with the help of a long term monito-
ring of such structures. However, appropriate reduction of material
strengths presumes realistic results for the forces and stresses from the
static ananlysis.

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P. M. Jarrett and A. McGown (eds.), The Application of Polymeric Reinforcement in Soil Retaining Structures, 313-337.
© 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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The limit analysis design of geotextile reinforced retaining walls is

usually similar to that of conventional retaining walls (cf.(8)), whereas
the application of such conventional analysis on reinforced walls has not
yet been verified.

Because of the high costs of large scale tests, only a few fully instru-
mented and evaluated cases have been reported. For none of the published
experiments limit states could be reached (cf.(13),(15)). The design,
however, is mainly based on limit analysis.

From the foregoing it is clear that there is a need for additional theore-
tical and experimental investigations of the behaviour of geotextile rein-
forced retaining walls.

The aim of this paper is the discussion of available limit analysis design
concepts and their experimental verification. In section 2 for several
reasons mainly the design concept proposed by Gudehus and Schwing (8) will
be presented. The reasons are: Concept is based on model test results, the
most important aspects of stability are incorporated, partial factors of
safety have been calculated with a probabilistic method by these authors.
Section 3 deals with the experimental verification of the presented design
concept, whereas a procedure for test evaluation is discussed, followed by
the application of this procedure to the evaluation of published data from
large scale tests. Finally, in section 3 the proposals for future theore-
tical and experimental investigations are summarized. Section 4 deals with
case studies.

2. DESIGN OF REINFORCED ARTIFICIAL SLOPES

Design steps are discussed with respect to the standard reinforced wall
shown in figure 2.1: cohesionless soil, no surcharge loads. This section
contains the theoretical background needed for evaluation of field data.

FIGURE 2.1. Standard geotextile reinforced retaining wall.

Today's design of reinforced artificial slopes is mostly based on limit-

analysis models describing the failure of the structure. For displacement
estimates empirical formulas are used. In the following the limit analysis
desig~, determination of displacements and the statement of partial
factors of safety are discussed.

2.1. Limit states

For convenience, limit states will be discussed separately for modes of so

called internal-and external failure. External failure is characterized by