Geotextile soil reinforcement in retaining walls

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The reinforced earth technique has been extensively used over the last two decades, mainly for the construction of retaining walls. the well established use of quasi-inextensible metallic reinforcement in this technique, has led to designmethods based upon either limit stress analysis or upon empirical relationships derived from experimental observations. a wide range of polymer reinforcing materials has been developed including geotextiles in the form of sheets, strips or grids to overcome the corrosion limitations of metallic reinforcement. despite the differences between the behaviour of these polymer materials and metallic reinforcement, there has been little modification of the design methods. the current research includes a laboratory study of the extension of polymer strip soil reinforcement under normal loads of up to 24 kn/m in soil models. two pullout boxes and a modified shear box were used in conjunction with strain gauged polymer reinforcement strips. other controlled variables include; the soil properties, internal strength and dilatancy; the reinforcement characteristics, extensibility and creep, the testing attributes such as the loading mode, strain rate, sample preparation,boundary conditions and test procedure. a synthesis of the experimental results obtained coupled with those published by other investigators, using a variety of reinforcing materials and soils, is considered. particular attention is paid to the relationship between the deformation behaviour, the mobilisation of friction and the reinforcements' mechanical properties.