Soil Reinforcement under Oblique Pull – An Updated Discretization

Abstract

Reinforced soil structures are gaining popularity for a variety of reasons mainly because it is safe, economical, aesthetic and rapid in constructions. However, the actual behaviour of these structures at failure is still not properly understood. The present study attempts to evaluate the internal stability of these structures against pullout failure. Kinematics of failure suggests that the failure surface intersects the reinforcement obliquely causing an oblique pullout of the reinforcement. In this paper, an updated discretization technique is used to determine the pullout capacity of an inextensible reinforcement resting on a linear elastic Pasternak subgrade and subjected to an oblique end force. A parametric study is conducted and a new factor, length correction factor is introduced in the present analysis. The correction factors have a significant influence on the pullout response especially for high values of obliquity and end displacement. Present analysis thus gives a more realistic value of pullout capacity which is required for the internal stability analysis and design of reinforced soil structures. A case study is also presented to validate the proposed analysis. The maximum reinforcement tension is predicted for top few reinforcements using the proposed method and the AASHTO Simplified Method. The present analysis gives a better prediction of the mobilized reinforcement tension compared to the AASHTO method.