• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.17-23
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• 2007

To construct an ideal geosynthetic reinforced soil retaining wall (GRS-RW), the facing of the wall should be flexible enough to accommodate a large deformation of the supporting ground and to develop the large tensile force in reinforcements during wall construction as long as the stability is ensured, but should be rigid enough to be stiff and stable as well as durable and aesthetically acceptable for a long life time when the wall is in service. Facing conditions during the construction and service of the wall are quite different. So it is difficult to be satisfied all these conditions with the current construction method which is mainly used in reinforced wall construction in Korea. Most of this contradiction could be solved by the staged construction procedure. According to the results of cases and references analyses, stage construction procedures make it possible to accommodate large deformation of the supporting ground and backfill without losing the stability of the wall, and to derive the tensile strength of reinforcement causing deformation of the facing. When the facing is a full-height rigid one, it also appeared almost impossible to occur a local shear failure of the active zone, and pull-out failure of reinforcements. Therefore, GRS-RWs having a full-height rigid facing have been constructed by the staged construction procedures that matched well with the theory of reinforced soil, which had outstanding stability and durability, and thus could be used for railways and bridge abutments in Korea in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2010

To understand the deformation behavior of nonwoven geotextiles(NWGT) reinforced soil wall, analyses of load-elongation properties, soil-reinforcement interface friction, laboratory model tests, and field cases throughout literature reviews are being studied in this paper. According to the analyses results, the stiffness and tensile strength of NWGT is increased in proportion to confinement pressures, and the interface shear strength at soil-NWGT appeared to be stronger than soil-geogrid interface. The deformation at the beginning of loading on NWGT reinforced soil wall is larger than geogrid reinforced soil wall, but the wall deformation with NWGT is smaller than the wall of geogrid after passing some loading point in laboratory model tests. Case analysis results have shown that the facing of NWGT reinforced soil wall should be rigid enough to be used as a permanent wall, and NWGT and in-situ poor soil can be used for reinforcement and backfill respectively if the wall is constructed as pre-reinforced soil body and with post-facing that has a full-height rigid concrete.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2007.09a
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• pp.39-52
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• 2007

A new type bridge combining an integral bridge and a pair of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) retaining walls having full-height rigid (FHR) facings, called the GRS integral bridge, is proposed. The geosynthetic reinforcement layers are connected to the FHR facings (i.e., RC parapets) that are integrated with a girder without using any girder-support. GRS integral bridges are basically much more cost-effective in construction and long-term maintenance while having a much higher seismic stability than conventional-type bridges having a girder via movable and fixed supports on a pair of cantilever abutments. GRS integral bridges are better than bridges using GRS retaining walls as abutments and also than conventional integral bridges with unreinforced backfill. To validate the above, a series of static cyclic lateral loading tests of the facing and a series of shaking table tests were performed on smallscaled models of different bridge types.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.291-321
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• 2011

The paper describes a simple numerical FLAC model that was developed to simulate the dynamic response of two instrumented reduced-scale model reinforced soil walls constructed on a 1-g shaking table. The models were 1 m high by 1.4 m wide by 2.4 m long and were constructed with a uniform size sand backfill, a polymeric geogrid reinforcement material with appropriately scaled stiffness, and a structural full-height rigid panel facing. The wall toe was constructed to simulate a perfectly hinged toe (i.e. toe allowed to rotate only) in one model and an idealized sliding toe (i.e. toe allowed to rotate and slide horizontally) in the other. Physical and numerical models were subjected to the same stepped amplitude sinusoidal base acceleration record. The material properties of the component materials (e.g. backfill and reinforcement) were determined from independent laboratory testing (reinforcement) and by back-fitting results of a numerical FLAC model for direct shear box testing to the corresponding physical test results. A simple elastic-plastic model with Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion for the sand was judged to give satisfactory agreement with measured wall results. The numerical results are also compared to closed-form solutions for reinforcement loads. In most cases predicted and closed-form solutions fall within the accuracy of measured loads based on ${\pm}1$ standard deviation applied to physical measurements. The paper summarizes important lessons learned and implications to the seismic design and performance of geosynthetic reinforced soil walls.