Behavior of geosynthetic reinforced soil walls with poor quality backfills on yielding foundations

This thesis is a study of the behavior of GRS walls with poor quality backfill on yielding foundations with the goal of contributing towards a rational design of these walls. The research consisted of numerical simulation of a GRS wall constructed using poor quality backfill on a compressible foundation. The results were compared to an equivalent full scale instrumented wall. Parametric analyses were performed to study the effect of varying some important parameters on the wall response. The impact of water was studied by modeling the effect of a wetting front advancing into the fill due to infiltration of water through a two-phase flow analysis. Findings from this research show that GRS walls using poor quality backfills on a yielding foundation can be designed using current methods used for granular backfills but adequate provision for drainage is critical. A reinforced base is essential to spread the load onto the yielding foundation. Permeable reinforcements are not effective in reducing the generation of excess pore pressure due to infiltration for backfills compacted dry of optimum.