Analytical model for predicting time-dependent lateral deformation of geosynthetics-reinforced soil walls with modular block facing

To date,few models are available in the literature to consider the creep behavior of geosynthetics when predicting the lateral deformation(d)of geosynthetics-reinforced soil(GRS)retaining walls.In this study,a general hyperbolic creep model was first introduced to describe the long-term deformation of geosynthetics,which is a function of elapsed time and two empirical parameters a and b.The conventional creep tests with three different tensile loads(Pr)were conducted on two uniaxial geogrids to determine their creep behavior,as well as the a-Pr and b-Pr relationships.The test results show that increasing Pr accelerates the development of creep deformation for both geogrids.Meanwhile,a and b respectively show exponential and negatively linear relationships with Pr,which were confirmed by abundant experimental data available in other studies.Based on the above creep model and relationships,an accurate and reliable analytical model was then proposed for predicting the time-dependent d of GRS walls with modular block facing,which was further validated using a relevant numerical investigation from the previous literature.Performance evaluation and comparison of the proposed model with six available prediction models were performed.Then a parametric study was carried out to evaluate the effects of wall height,vertical spacing of geogrids,unit weight and internal friction angle of backfills,and factor of safety against pullout on d at the end of construction and 5 years afterwards.The findings show that the creep effect not only promotes d but also raises the elevation of the maximum d along the wall height.Finally,the limitations and application prospects of the proposed model were discussed and analyzed.

Determination and Analysis on Heat of Trapezoidal Soil Wall in Solar Greenhouse

Solar greenhouse with trapezoidal soil wall is widely used due to its good heat retaining property and cost efficiency.In this study, solar irradiance, heat flux and the temperature 0.05 and 0.3 m from the inner surface of the wall at the upper,middle and lower measured positions were determined to study the thermal condition of the trapezoidal soil wall in solar greenhouse. The results showed: first, both the solar irradiance and the temperature increased from the upper to the lower measured position. Second, the heat absorption also increased from the upper to the lower measured position. In clear day, the heat absorption at the three measured positions accounted for 31.4%, 32.6% and 36.0% of the total amount of heat absorption of the whole wall. In cloudy day, the heat absorption at the three measured positions were 0.249, 0.370 and 0.440 MJ/m^2, which accounted for 23.5%, 35.0% and 41.4% of the total amount of heat absorption of the whole wall. When P<0.05, the heat fluxes were strikingly different between the upper and lower measured positions. But when P<0.01, the heat flux had no big difference among the three measured positions. Third, in clear day, the heat emission was the biggest at the middle measured position and smallest at the upper measured position. The heat emission at the three measured positions accounted for 27.5%, 36.7%and 35.8% of the total amount of heat emission of the whole wall. And the heat emission between the middle and lower measured position was not strikingly different. In cloudy day, the heat emission was the biggest at the lower measured position and smallest at the upper measured position. The average heat emission at the three measured positions accounted for 26.1%,36.4% and 37.4% of the total amount of heat emission of the whole wall. Fourthly, correlativity, the solar irradiance directly influenced the heat absorption and had close relation with heat emission. And heat emission again had close relation with the temperature in the greenhouse. Solar irradiance directly influences the thermal condition of a solar green house. It is hoped that this study can be referred to optimize trapezoidal structure and to improve the thermal conditions of the solar greenhouse.

Seismic stability of reinforced soil walls under bearing capacity failure by pseudo-dynamic method

In order to evaluate the seismic stability of reinforced soil walls against bearing capacity failure,the seismic safety factor of reinforced soil walls was determined by using pseudo-dynamic method,and calculated by considering different parameters,such as horizontal and vertical seismic acceleration coefficients,ratio of reinforcement length to wall height,back fill friction angle,foundation soil friction angle,soil reinforcement interface friction angle and surcharge.The parametric study shows that the seismic safety factor increases by 24-fold when the foundation soil friction angle varies from 25°to 45°,and increases by 2-fold when the soil reinforcement interface friction angle varies from 0 to 30°.That is to say,the bigger values the foundation soil and/or soil reinforcement interface friction angles have,the safer the reinforced soil walls become in the seismic design.The results were also compared with those obtained from pseudo-static method.It is found that there is a higher value of the safety factor by the present work.

Predicting seismic permanent displacement of soil walls under surcharge based on limit analysis approach

Seismic permanent displacement of the soil walls plays an important role in design of these structures. Due to the increase in growth of urban areas and the limitations in use of flat grounds, many structures are built near slopes and retaining walls. During earthquakes, these structures can apply an additional surcharge on the wall. The intensity and location of the surcharge is of considerable importance on the seismic displacements of the soil wall. In this study, by using the limit analysis and upper bound theorem, seismic permanent displacement of the soil wall under surcharge has been analyzed. Thus, a formulation is presented for calculating the yield acceleration and seismic displacement for different surcharge conditions. The effect of seismic acceleration, surcharge intensity, its location and soil properties is investigated. A parameter called the "displacement coefficient" is proposed, and is a potential modification for Newmark's sliding-block method.

Average temperature calculation for straight single-row-piped frozen soil wall

The average temperature of frozen soil wall is an essential parameter in the process of design,construction,and safety management of artificial ground freezing engineering.It is the basis of calculating frozen soil's mechanical parameters,further prediction of bearing capacity and,ultimately,safety evaluation of the frozen soil wall.Regarding the average temperature of single-row-piped frozen soil wall,this paper summarizes several current calculation methods and their shortcomings.Furthermore,on the basis of Bakholdin's analytical solution for the temperature field under straight single-row-piped freezing,two new calculation models,namely,the equivalent trapezoid model and the equivalent triangle model,are proposed.These two approaches are used to calculate the average temperature of a certain cross section which indicates the condition of the whole frozen soil wall.Considering the possible parameter range according to the freezing pipe layout that might be applied in actual construction,this paper compares the average temperatures of frozen soil walls obtained by the equivalent trapezoid method and the equivalent triangle method with that obtained by numerical integration of Bakholdin's analytical solution.The results show that the discrepancies are extremely small and these two new approaches are better than currently prevailing methods.However,the equivalent triangle method boasts higher accuracy and a simpler formula compared with the equivalent trapezoid method.

Influence of variables related to soil weathering on the geomechanical performance of tropical soils

This paper presents an experimental and analytical investigation of the influence of variables related to soil weathering on the geomechanical performance of sand-silt mixtures containing lateritic soils,i.e.intensely weathered tropical soils with the influence of interparticle bonding.The sand-silt mixtures containing different relative proportions between uniform sand and lateritic soil were produced,and geomechanical soil characterization tests were performed.Based on the results,a transition from a primarily coarse-to a fine-grained prevailing soil structure was found to cause considerable impact on the geomechanical performance of these soils,as evidenced by design variables related to soil mineralogy and size distribution characteristics.Specifically,fines contents of both individual soil particles and soil aggregations were found to correlate with experimental results,while the relative proportion between sesquioxides(aluminum,and iron oxides),and silica,i.e.sesquioxide-silica ratios(SSR^(-1)),facilitated estimates concerning changes in geomechanical performance.Finally,the application of the sandsilt mixtures containing lateritic soil on soil walls reinforced with polymeric strips was also evaluated,further emphasizing the potential advantages of adopting variables related to soil weathering on design guidelines concerning tropical soils.

Critical embedment depth of a rigid retaining wall against overturning in unsaturated soils considering intermediate principal stress and strength nonlinearity

The overturning stability is vital for the retaining wall design of foundation pits, where the surrounding soils are usually unsaturated due to water draining. Moreover, the intermediate principal stress does affect the unsaturated soil strength; meanwhile, the relationship between the unsaturated soil strength and matric suction is nonlinear. This work is to present closed-form equations of critical embedment depth for a rigid retaining wall against overturning by means of moment equilibrium. Matric suction is considered to be distributed uniformly and linearly with depth. The unified shear strength formulation for unsaturated soils under the plane strain condition is adopted to characterize the intermediate principal stress effect, and strength nonlinearity is described by a hyperbolic model of suction angle. The result obtained is orderly series solutions rather than one specific answer; thus, it has wide theoretical significance and good applicability. The validity of this present work is demonstrated by comparing it with a lower bound solution. The traditional overturning designs for rigid retaining walls, in which the saturated soil mechanics neglecting matric suction or the unsaturated soil mechanics based on the Mohr-Coulomb criterion are employed, are special cases of the proposed result. Parametric studies about the intermediate principal stress, matric suction and its distributions along with two strength nonlinearity methods on a new defined critical buried coefficient are discussed.

A case study on behaviors of composite soil nailed wall with bored piles in a deep excavation

深挖掘的一个完全的盒子被探索。根据实际工作条件， 3D 非线性的有限元素过程被用来模仿合成土壤支持的深挖掘有在软土壤的无聊的堆积的钉的墙。修改凸轮泥土模特儿在数字模拟作为土壤的组成的关系被雇用。从数字分析的结果与领域数据被适合很好，它显示使用的研究途径是可靠的。基于数据和钉的合成土壤的四个不同模式支持的深挖掘的数字结果围的地，重要角落效果深在 3D 被成立挖掘。如果无聊的堆积或土壤锚在钉的合成土壤被认为墙，他们对减少的变丑和在深挖掘附近的无聊的堆积，混合堆积的水泥，土壤锚，土壤钉和土壤的内部力量有益。而且，效果由于无聊的堆积比从土壤锚推出的那些更重要。上面提及的所有证明合成土壤与无聊的堆积钉了墙在深挖掘是可行的。

Soil bentonite wall protects foundation from thrust faulting: analyses and experiment

When seismic thrust faults emerge on the ground surface,they are particularly damaging to buildings,bridges and lifelines that lie on the rupture path.To protect a structure founded on a rigid raft,a thick diaphragm-type soil bentonite wall(SBW) is installed in front of and near the foundation,at sufficient depth to intercept the propagating fault rupture.Extensive numerical analyses,verified against reduced–scale(1 g) split box physical model tests,reveal that such a wall,thanks to its high deformability and low shear resistance,"absorbs" the compressive thrust of the fault and forces the rupture to deviate upwards along its length.As a consequence,the foundation is left essentially intact.The effectiveness of SBW is demonstrated to depend on the exact location of the emerging fault and the magnitude of the fault offset.When the latter is large,the unprotected foundation experiences intolerable rigid-body rotation even if the foundation structural distress is not substantial.

Seismic responses of the steel-strip reinforced soil retaining wall with full-height rigid facing from shaking table test

To investigate the seismic response of the steel-strip reinforced soil retaining wall with fullheight rigid facing in terms of the acceleration in the backfill, dynamic earth pressure in the backfill, the displacements on the facing and the dynamic reinforcement strain distribution under different peak acceleration, a large 1-g shaking table test was performed on a reduced-scale reinforced-earth retaining wall model. It was observed that the acceleration response in non-strip region is greater than that in potential fracture region which is similar with the stability region under small earthquake,while the acceleration response in potential fracture region is greater than that in stability region in middle-upper of the wall under moderately strong earthquakes. The potential failure model of the rigid wall is rotating around the wall toe. It also was discovered that the Fourier spectra produced by the inputting white noises after seismic wave presents double peaks, rather than original single peak, and the frequency of the second peak trends to increase with increasing the PGA(peak ground amplitude) of the excitation which is greater than 0.4 g. Additionally,the non-liner distribution of strip strain along the strips was observed, and the distribution trend was not constant in different row. Soil pressure peak value in stability region is larger than that in potential fracture region. The wall was effective under 0.1 g-0.3 g seismic wave according to the analyses of the facing displacement and relative density. Also, it was discovered that the potential failure surface is corresponds to that in design code, but the area is larger. The results from the study can provide guidance for a more rational design of reinforced earth retaining walls with full-height rigid facing in the earthquake zone.

Non-limit passive soil pressure on rigid retaining walls

This paper aims to reveal the depth distribution law of non-limit passive soil pressure on rigid retaining wall that rotates about the top of the wall(rotation around the top(RT) model). Based on Coulomb theory, the disturbance degree theory, as well as the spring-element model, by setting the rotation angle of the wall as the disturbance parameter, we establish both a depth distribution function for sand and a nonlinear depth distribution calculation method for the non-limit passive soil pressure on a rigid retaining wall under the RT model, which is then compared with experiment. The results suggest that under the RT model: the non-limit soil pressure has a nonlinear distribution; the backfill disturbance degree and the lateral soil pressure increase with an increase in the wall rotation angle; and, the points where the resultant lateral soil pressure acts on the retaining wall are less than 2/3 of the height of the wall. The soil pressure predicted by the theoretical calculation put forward in this paper are quite similar to those obtained by the model experiment, which verifies the theoretical value, and the engineering guidance provided by the calculations are of significance.

Comparison of Seismic Design Codes between China and the United States for Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls

Because of its excellent seismic performance, reinforced soil retaining walls are increasingly used in civil engineering. Although many countries have published corresponding design codes, the differences between them are still relatively large. Using the FHWA Code and the Code for Seismic Design of Railway Engineering(CSDRE), stability calculations of reinforced soil retaining walls were carried out and the similarities and differences between these two design codes were analyzed. According to the comparative analysis, the following conclusions are drawn: the inertia force, the earth pressure and the tensile force of reinforcements calculated from the CSDRE are less than those from the FHWA Code, and the safety factor calculated from the former is larger. Although the M-O method is recommended to calculate the dynamic earth pressure, the FHWA Code suggests a higher action point as compared to the CSDRE.

筋材布设方式对加筋土挡墙动力响应的影响

针对目前加筋土挡墙设计和施工中筋材布设方式大多为等长形的问题,提出一种倒梯形的筋材布设方式,并基于挡墙位移分区理论和有限差分Flac^(3D)数值模拟,建立加筋土挡墙三维分析模型,探讨不同峰值加速度下3种加筋土挡墙对位移、水平土压力、筋材拉应力及潜在破裂面的影响。结果表明,随峰值加速度增大,挡墙位移逐渐增大,同一荷载作用下,改变筋材布设方式,侧向水平位移减少9.3%,竖向沉降减少5.3%;3种形式挡墙水平土压力相差不大,最大水平土压力分布在挡墙的中下部;筋材拉应力随峰值加速度的增大,沿墙高从单峰型转化为双峰型分布,最大值位于挡墙中下部;潜在破裂面填土区破裂带的形状与筋材的布设方式有关。所提出的倒梯形筋材布设方式对加筋土挡墙的抗震效果更好,可为施工设计中加筋土挡墙筋材布设提供参考。

Recent Vegetation Cover Dynamics and Climatic Parameters Evolution Study in the Great Green Wall of Senegal

The drought recorded in 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the Sahara and Sahel region has greatly affected the population as well as the economies and the eco-systems of this area. In 2007, the African Union launched a Pan-African program, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara, the Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI) to reverse land degradation and desertification by planting a wall of trees stretching from Dakar to Djibouti. The objective is to improve food security, and support local people to adapt to climate change. This paper aims to evaluate the impacts of the reforestation program in Senegal, fifteen years after it was launched. This study uses a time series of satellite-derived vegetation cover and climatic parameters data to analyze the sustainability of these interventions. Change detection approaches were applied to identify and characterize the drives of the eventual changes. A comparative analysis of reforestation on climatic parameters was explored through the temporal analysis of the vegetation index over the periods 2000-2008 and 2009-2020. An increase in vegetation activity was noted through the NDVI at the interannual (+2% to +8%) and seasonal (+1.5% to 7% for the wet season and 1% to 4% for the dry season) scale and a positive and significant evolution is noted on the trace of the GGW. Also, the period 2009-2020 recorded an increase in rainfall of 2% to 8% of the average value 2000-2020 and 4% to 8% of the rainy season. Soil moisture is the climatic parameter that has increased the most, with an increase of 25% to 54% of the 2000-2020 average, i.e. between 20 mm and 70 mm more. This study shows a significant improvement in the relationship between NDVI and climate parameters after the different reforestation actions of the GGW.

塑性混凝土咬合桩防渗墙变形机理研究

以大连湾沉管隧道南岸港池临时围堰工程监测数据为基础,建立了塑性混凝土咬合桩防渗墙数值计算模型,通过实测数据验证了模型的准确性,分析了不同影响因素下咬合桩防渗墙的变形演化规律,结论表明:水压力相比土压力对咬合桩变形和内力的影响更为显著,水压力增大导致桩身变形和弯矩增大,扰动临时围堰土体;土体坡度的影响较小,但土体坡度应逐渐放缓,不小于1∶1.5;桩长的变化对变形影响较大,较短的桩身未嵌固在岩石中,较长的桩身在桩顶出现最大位移;随着桩径增大,桩顶变形和最大弯矩逐渐增大,弯矩分布较为一致。

深基坑斜直交替钢管桩复合土钉墙数值模拟分析

依托福建某医院的基坑工程实例,采用数值模拟方法,研究斜直交替钢管桩复合土钉墙支护结构的变形特征及其稳定性。结果表明:坡面水平位移最大变形出现在基坑“腰部”,设计时应适当加强此位置的变形控制;斜直交替钢管桩复合土钉墙支护体系安全可行,其较双排直立钢管桩复合土钉墙及单一土钉墙有更好的变形控制能力和更高的稳定性。

重力式码头升级改造板桩墙后土压力分布

针对重力式码头升级改造新建板桩墙方案板桩墙后土压力分布问题,开展新建板桩墙距已有重力式墙身不同距离的土压力分布规律研究。采用有限元数值模拟和理论公式计算对比分析,得出作用在前板桩墙上的土压力小于理论主动土压力,即存在贮仓效应的结论。建议重力式码头改造工程设置前板桩墙时,采用公式合理选取贮仓尺寸,或根据新建板桩墙距已有码头墙身的距离采用有限元计算作用在板桩墙上的土压力,避免保守或激进设计。

基于离散元模拟的不同挡土墙位移模式下非极限主动土压力

针对刚性挡土墙主动位移过程中砂土非极限主动土压力问题,利用PFC 2D分别对挡土墙绕墙顶转动(RB)模式、绕墙顶转动(RT)模式和平动(T)模式下砂土主动破坏过程进行模拟分析。分析结果表明,不同位移模式下土体内摩擦角及墙土摩擦角调动规律存在差异。挡土墙主动位移过程中,RB模式下土体破坏从墙顶开始,向墙脚发展,土楔体内部只有靠近墙背侧区域出现主应力偏转现象,并且土楔体中内摩擦角调动值均能达到极限值。RT模式下,土体破坏沿着墙背和滑裂面从墙脚开始,向土体表面发展,墙后土楔体中上部区域主应力偏转角度较大,形成了大主应力拱,与此对应的是该区域内摩擦角调动值相对初始内摩擦角减小。T模式下,土体破坏分别沿着墙背从墙顶向墙脚发展以及沿着滑裂面从墙脚向土体表面发展,墙后土楔体内部会出现小主应力拱,且内摩擦角调动值从初始内摩擦角增加,但达不到极限值。

GFRP筋土钉支护钉头的锚固性能

土钉钉头为土钉墙整体结构中的薄弱部位,为研究土钉钉头锚固性能,以一种装配式柔性面层GFRP筋土钉墙为例,通过室内钉头锚固性能试验及三维数值模拟对外径32 mm的中空GFRP筋钉头的极限抗拉强度、钉头变形及破坏规律进行研究。研究结果表明,该GFRP筋钉头极限承载力在240~290 kN之间,当螺母拧紧时螺纹副的应力主要分布在螺纹牙前3环,其中以钉头第1环螺纹牙应力集中现象尤为明显;此外,采用螺纹展开法建立钉头螺纹牙的力学模型,得出了第1环螺纹极限剪切强度与钉头极限荷载之间的关系,并通过计算得出该GFRP筋钉头极限承载力为244.54 kN,与试验结果相符。通过室内钉头锚固性能试验的脆性破坏特点,确定GFRP筋钉头安全系数在1.8~2.0之间,并判定此种GFRP筋安全荷载在125~135 kN之间。