Reliability Analysis of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Wall Using Pseudo-Static (Mononobe-Okabe) Approach
摘要
Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) retaining walls are gaining popularity in highway projects owing to relatively lesser cost and ease in their construction when compared to a concrete retaining wall. Due to the uncertainties associated with the geotechnical parameters, a deterministic analysis is not able to quantify the effect of parameters uncertainties on the stability of these walls. Therefore, this study evaluates the effect of geotechnical parameters uncertainties on the stability of MSE wall by incorporating a probabilistic analysis using Monte Carlo simulation. The Factor of Safety (FOS) for various failure modes (sliding, moment, and bearing) as per pseudo-static Mononobe-Okabe approach is assessed. The geotechnical parameters (friction angle and unit weight) considering a normal distribution were used as random variables. About 100,000 realizations were performed for each failure mode to assess their failure probability. A sensitivity analysis is conducted utilizing F-tests to determine the influence of the variables on each failure mode. The results of this study show that FOS against sliding and moment follows a normal distribution with mean value of 0.99 and 2.91respectively, whereas FOS against bearing follows a log normal distribution with mean value of 4.28. The friction angle of retained backfill and reinforced soil are critical for stability of the wall due to their high sensitivity on the failure modes. The result shows that L/H ratio of 0.7 is not sufficient when designing for seismic condition and hence a higher design value for L/H ratio should be use to ensure the stability of the MSE wall.