Pull-Out and Rupture Behavior of Geogrid Reinforcements in MSE Wall Subjected to Seismic Conditions

Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls are an alternative engineering structure to traditional reinforced concrete retaining walls with significant and adaptable height at a lower cost. The main objective of this study is to perform a detailed numerical analysis of the MSE wall for the effect of parameters such as reinforced soil, the vertical spacing between reinforcements, the tensile strength of reinforcement, surcharge magnitude, and wall height on the internal stability of MSE wall under the static and seismic loading conditions. The analysis has been carried out using the Geo-5 numerical tool to obtain the Factor of Safety (FS) against internal stability checks. Variations of FS against rupture and pull-out for reinforced blocks are compared for various parameters considered in this study. From the detailed parametric analysis for the internal stability of the MSE wall, it has been found that the rupture and pull-out resistance is higher for minimum vertical spacing. FS reduces as surcharge magnitudes increase. The pull-out resistance is substantially larger than the rupture resistance for higher wall heights. In clayey soil, the rupture is larger at the top layer than at the lower layers for a given wall elevation, yet pull-out is greater at the lower levels than at the top layers.