Study On Structural Characteristics And Failure Mechanism Of Geogrid RSRW

Reinforced soil retaining wall (RSRW) is a kind of composite structure composed with panel, reinforcement and fill. It was used widely as retaining structure in many types of civil engineering, such as highway engineering, water transport engineering, water conservancy project, railway engineering and so on, enormous economic benefits, social benefits and environmental benefits were obtained. For study on structural characteristics and failure mechanism of RSRW, the governing aspects are the engineering mechanical properties of the component parts and their interaction under different working condition. But so far, despite large numbers of researching works by various methods, these governing aspects have not been studied distinctly, some problems are so much as illegibility.At present, conventional analytic methods of RSRW are based on theory of limit equilibrium, which can not take account of the strength and deformation of structure uniformly, and calculate the displacement of panel, settlement of fill and so on. In the late seventies of the twentieth century, the finite element method (FEM) for RSRW was introduced, so that, the structural deformation is closely linked with the balance of force, and consequently the simulation of complicated properties and processes become possible. However, the study of RSRW using this method has not integrated so far, people commonly take static load but not dynamic load and interaction between water and reinforced soil (RS) body into consideration in analysis. For the theoretical limitation, the design of RSRW in engineering practice does not calculate these aspects neither, consequently various case histories of RSRW in engineering application were brought on, such as excessive deformation and actual collapse. In fact, soil is being as saturated or unsaturated state, it is a kind of composite composed with solid, liquid and gas, namely a typical porous media. The deformable framework is made up of soil particles, the pore space is filled with flowable liquid and gas. Therefore, all geotechnical engineering problems are typical coupled hydromechanical problem. But so far, regarding soil as porous media, using mixture theory and multi-field coupling theory, the structural characteristics and failure mechanism of RSRW have not been studied. This certainly will affect the farther development of RS theory and the extensive application of RS technology.In this dissertation, based on research findings at home and abroad on RSRW and...