Elasto-plastic finite element study for parameters of geogrid-reinforced soil retaining wall

The application of geogrid-reinforced soil retaining wall in civil engineering has gained great popularity. The test wall by PWRI of Japan is firstly simulated and a series of parametric studies are conducted using elasto-plastic finite element method. The design parameters studied include soil property, reinforcement length, reinforcement spacing, interaction between soil and facing, and so on. To fully capture the behavior of the soil-structure system, a generalized plastic model which can capture the pressure dependency behavior of soil is used to model the backfill and foundation soils, while an elasto-plastic model with bounding surface is employed to simulate the geogrid reinforcement. The soil structure interaction is modeled using thin slip element which can simulate slip, open and close of interfaces. Some conclusions which are helpful to the design of such structures are drawn based on the results of the finite element analyses.