• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.123-134
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• 2022

The use of reinforced soil walls has grown significantly over the last few decades due to their ease construction and economical efficiency. Many damage cases of the reinforced soil walls have been reported as the use of reinforced soil walls increases. Inappropriate design and construction management mainly induce these problems. This paper describes case study on two damaged geogrid reinforced soil walls. The causes of the damage are investigated through the site investigations and proper countermeasures are proposed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.11-17
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• 2010

Numerical analysis was carried out in order to simulate the development of the large deformation that took place on the reinforced earth wall, a part of the Tottori expressway planned to pass Hyogo, Japan. Since this reinforced earth wall had experienced unexpected deformation of the wall during construction, the wall was re-constructed twice. However, the wall deformation showed no sign to cease even at the final stage of the construction. Countermeasures to re-stabilize the wall were demanded. In part I of this paper, it was manifested that subsidence of a 3-meter weak soil due to seepage flow was responsible for the large deformation. A part of concrete panel wall was severely damaged due to extremely large pulling force of geotextile induced by the hammock state. As for the countermeasures, "grouting with slag system" was applied to fill voids of the backfill, and also to prevent further development of settlement in the weak soil layer. "Ground anchor" was also considered to achieve the prescribed factor of safety.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2020

There have been often cases of collapse for geogrid reinforced soil (GRS) retaining wall. Hence, social interest in the reinforcement and restoration of the collapsed GRS wall is increasing day by day. However, there are only few researches. For this reason, a series of numerical analyses using the Plaxis 2D program was conducted in this study to analyze the suitable reinforcement methods that can be applied on the existing damaged GRS wall caused by overturning of the modular blocks facing and the surface settlement at the backfill as the results from the design failure. The restoration plan used in this study is composed of two cases: (Case 1) soil nailing reinforcement and reinforced concrete (RC) wall facing construction on the existing damaged GRS wall; and (Case 2) removal of the entire damaged GRS wall and then reconstruction. The results on the internal stability of the GRS wall show that Case 1 obtained a greater safety factor than Case 2 for tensile force while Case 2 had a greater safety factor than Case 1 for pullout failures. Case 1 was found to be more stable than Case 2 in terms of the global slope safety by shear strength reduction method and the external deformation behavior by numerical analysis. In this study, the existing damaged GRS wall which was reinforced using Case 1 method shows more stable external behavior.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

Case study was carried out on the interpretation of the mechanical behavior of a severely damaged reinforced earth wall comprising geotextile with the concrete panel facing. In this part I, the outline of the damaged reinforced earth wall is in detail described. The background and cause of the damage are discussed based on the results of site investigation. The engineering properties of the fill were examined by performing various in-situ and laboratory tests, including the surface wave survey (SWS), PS-logging, RI-logging, soaking test, the direct shear box (DSB) test, bender element (BE) test, etc. The background as well as the cause for the damage of the wall may be described such that i) a considerable amount of settlement took place over a 3m thick weak soil layer in the lower part of the reinforced earth due to seepage of rainfall water, ii) the weight of the upper fill was partially supported by the geo-textile hooked on the concrete panels (n.b., named conveniently "hammock state" in this paper), and iii) the concrete panels to form the hammock were severely damaged by the unexpectedly large downwards compression force triggered by the tension force of the geotextile. The numerical simulation for the hammock state of the wall, together with counter-measures to re- stabilize the wall is subsequently described in Part II.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.95-109
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• 2020

In this study, a total of six site cases were reviewed to assess the site applicability of portable dynamic cone penetration test (DCPT) by identifying the cause of damage to the damaged reinforced earth wall using portable dynamic cone penetration test. An improved dynamic concrete penetration tester was used at the site to enable ground surveys of more than 6 meters. The test results were compared with the results of the standard penetration test (SPT) and the correlation was analyzed. Through the analysis of various field application cases, it was found that portable dynamic cone penetration test was very convenient to apply at the site of the damaged reinforced earth wall, and DCPT could play a major role in identifying the cause of damage and verifying stability of the retaining wall by continuously identifying the ground strength. In addition, it was found that the results of the dynamic cone penetration test and the standard penetration test showed a correlation of N≒(1/3~2/3)·Nd in sandy soil.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.66-71
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• 2010

This paper studies the effect of saturation of backfill on the seismic stability of reinforced soil walls (RSWs) using centrifuge shaking table tests. For comparison, degradation of static stability and seismic stability of a RSW under unsaturated condition was also investigated. Test results showed that the RSW under saturated condition had enough static stability. However, seismic stability of saturated RSW significantly decreased as compared with that under unsaturated condition. The saturated model RSW did not collapse, though it showed large deformation. It maintained sufficient stability after shakings although a clear slip surface appeared in the backfill. Finally, it is discussed how to evaluate residual stability of RSWs damaged by earthquakes with test results and the simple evaluation method proposed by authors.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.297-319
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• 2013

Two destructive earthquakes occurred on October 23 and November 9, 2011 in Van province of Turkey. The damage in residential units shows significant deviation from the expectation of decreasing damage with increasing distance to epicenter. The most damaged settlement Ercis has the same distance to the epicenter with Muradiye, where no damage occurred while relatively less damage observed in Van having half distance. These three cities seem to have resembling soil conditions. If the damages are evaluated: joint failures and insufficient lap splice lengths are observed to be the main causes of the total collapses in RC buildings. Additionally, low concrete strength, reinforcement detailing mistakes, soft story, heavy overhang, pounding and short columns are among other damage reasons. Examples of damages due to non-structural elements are also given. Remarkable points about seismic damages are: collapsed buildings with shear-walls, heavily damaged buildings despite adequate concrete strength due to detailing mistakes, undamaged two-story adobe buildings close to totally collapsed RC ones and undamaged structural system in buildings with heavily damaged non-structural elements. On the contrary of the common belief that buildings with shear-walls are immune to total collapse among civil engineers, collapse of Gedikbulak primary school is a noteworthy example.