Abstract
In this paper, a model geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining walls (GRS-RW) is tested by vertically loading it through a rough footing on the top near the retaining wall and the results are simulated by a sophisticated nonlinear Finite Element Method (FEM) having a novel rate dependent constitutive model for both the backfill material and the geosynthetic reinforcement. Usually, polymer geosynthetic reinforcement is known to exhibit more-or-less rate-dependent stress–strain or load–strain behavior due to their viscous properties. The geomaterials (i.e., clay, sand, gravel and soft rock) also exhibit viscous properties. The viscous behavior of geometrials are quite different from that of the polymer based geosynthetic-reinforcements. It has been revealed recently that viscous behavior of sand is a kind of temporary effect, which vanishes with time. So the rate-dependent deformation of backfill reinforced with polymer geosynthetic reinforcement becomes highly complicated due to interactions between the elasto-viscoplastic properties of backfill and reinforcement. In the present study, a scaled model geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall is tested with a vertically loaded rough rigid footing. The results of the model test are simulated by using an appropriate elasto-viscoplastic constitutive model of both sand and geogrid embedded in a nonlinear plane strain FEM.