Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

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Numerical analysis of instrumented mechanically stabilized gabion

walls with large vertical reinforcement spacing
Meixiang Gu a, James G. Collin b, Jie Han c, *, Zhen Zhang d, Burak F. Tanyu e,
Dov Leshchinsky f, Hoe I. Ling g, Pietro Rimoldi h
a
College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
b
Collin Group Inc., Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
c
Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) Department, The University of Kansas, 2150 Learned Hall, 1530 W. 15th Street, Lawrence, KS
66045, USA
d
Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University,
Shanghai 200092, China
e
Department of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
f
ADAMA Engineering Inc., Portland, OR 97015, USA
g
Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
h
Officine Maccaferri SpA, Bologna 40069, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The paper describes numerical models that were developed to simulate the performance of two
Received 26 November 2016 instrumented mechanically stabilized earth walls constructed in Izmir, Turkey. These walls were con-
Received in revised form structed with gabion facing, hybrid reinforcement layers, and fill on a rigid foundation. The hybrid
2 April 2017
reinforcement layers comprised primary reinforcement (geogrid) and secondary reinforcement (wire
Accepted 2 April 2017
Available online 18 April 2017
mesh). The vertical spacing between the primary reinforcement changed from 1 m to 2 m in two walls
while other properties were kept the same. The responses of the field walls at the end of construction
were simulated and compared with the numerical results. The results calculated from the numerical
Keywords:
Geosynthetics
models showed generally good agreement with the measured wall facing displacements, horizontal fill
Numerical modelling displacements, and tensile forces in the geogrid and in the wire mesh. The maximum calculated facing
Instrumented field walls displacements for the walls with 1 m and 2 m reinforcement spacing were 30.7 and 36.4 mm, respec-
Primary reinforcement tively. The maximum tensile forces in the geogrid layers were increased by 1.5 times in the 2 m spacing
Secondary reinforcement wall as compared with the 1 m spacing wall due to the increase of primary reinforcement spacing.
Gabion facing However, the spacing change did not have an obvious effect on the increase of tensile forces in the
secondary reinforcement (the wire mesh). The calculated results were also compared with theoretical
results relating to the earth pressure distributions and the location of the maximum tensile strains in the
primary reinforcement. The horizontal earth pressures against the wall facing were close to the active
earth pressures for both walls. The maximum tensile strain line of the reinforcement was close to the
Rankine's failure line.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction wall structures since their introduction in the 1970s (Koerner and
Soong, 2001; Allen and Bathurst, 2001; Leshchinsky et al., 2004;
Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls constructed with Yoo and Kim, 2008; Abdelouhab et al., 2011; Koerner and
geosynthetic reinforcement have been widely used as retaining Koerner, 2013; Han, 2015). The commonly used geosynthetic
reinforcement is geogrid or woven geotextile. The typical vertical
spacing between the reinforcement layers is not more than 0.8 m
* Corresponding author. according to the requirement of the Federal Highway Administra-
E-mail addresses: mxgu@[Link] (M. Gu), jim@[Link] tion (FHWA, 2009) and the American Association of State Highway
(J.G. Collin), jiehan@[Link] (J. Han), dyzhangzhen@[Link] (Z. Zhang), btanyu@ and Transportation (AASHTO, 2014). However, MSE walls with large
[Link] (B.F. Tanyu), adama@[Link] (D. Leshchinsky), ling@civil.
[Link] (H.I. Ling), [Link]@[Link] (P. Rimoldi).
reinforcement spacing were constructed recently in the field by

[Link]
0266-1144/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 295

taking the advantage of secondary reinforcement. The secondary by the authors. The seismic analysis is beyond the scope of this
reinforcement was short in length and connected with facing ele- paper. The numerical results obtained from the seismic analysis
ments to provide facing stability (Jiang et al., 2016). Moreover, the will be presented in another paper in the future.
presence of the secondary reinforcement could reduce the loads
carried by the primary reinforcement (long in length), thereby also 2. Characteristics of the Izmir walls and instrumentation
contributing to the overall internal wall stability (Leshchinsky and
Vulova, 2001; Leshchinsky et al., 2014; Jiang et al., 2016). The project walls were 16.0 m high, “hybrid” mechanically sta-
Rimoldi and Scotto (2012) reported two tall MSE walls with the bilized earth (MSE) walls constructed in Izmir, Turkey (Ozcelik
reinforcement spacing larger than 0.8 m were built recently. One et al., 2014; Tanyu et al., 2016). The walls were seated on a rigid
wall with the maximum height of 40 m was constructed in Albania foundation, where the bedrock consisted with 75% tuff, 18% vol-
for a highway project in 2011, where the vertical spacing of the canic rocks and breccia, and 7% limestone and shale. The wall facing
primary reinforcement reached up to 2.0 m. Another MSE wall with was comprised of gabion units which were formed by filling the
the maximum height of 74 m was constructed near a new airport in gabion baskets with stones (e.g., boulders). Nonwoven geotextile
India in 2012, where the vertical spacing of the primary rein- was placed at the back facing of the gabion unit to minimize mass
forcement also reached up to 2.0 m. However, there was no detailed loss. The structure is considered “hybrid” because its reinforcement
instrumentation program involved in these two projects in order to materials made up of both metallic and geosynthetic elements. The
assess quantitatively the performance features of the wall with metallic elements referred to as the gabion basket were formed by
large reinforcement spacing. Tanyu et al. (2016) presented an double twisted steel wire mesh as well as the secondary rein-
instrumented field case study of the Izmir wall, where the wall was forcement (i.e., the tails of the steel mesh extending from the
constructed with gabion basket facings having the double twisted bottom of the basket) for the facing stability. The geosynthetic el-
wire mesh and the vertical reinforcement spacing of 1.0 and 2.0 m, ements referred to as high strength geogrids were designed as the
respectively, in two sections. The physical performance of these primary reinforcement for the global stability. The vertical spacing
monitored walls (two sections) was recorded and summarized. between the primary reinforcement (the geogrid) was defined as
The measurements from the instrumented wall case studies the reinforcement spacing of the wall. For the 1 m spacing wall, the
have been widely used to assess the accuracy of limit equilibrium- vertical reinforcement spacing for all layers was 1.0 m. For the 2 m
based design methods found in the current design guidelines spacing wall, the vertical reinforcement spacing in the three bot-
(AASHTO 2012; Canadian Geotechnical Society, 2006; British tom layers was 1.0 m while the spacing in the other upper layers
Standards Institution (BSI), 2010) and to calibrate the resistance was 2.0 m. Fig. 1 shows the schematic views of two instrumented
factors for the reliability-based LRFD methods (Huang et al., 2012; walls with reinforcement spacing of 1.0 and 2.0 m, respectively.
Kim and Salgado, 2012; Bathurst et al., 2013). Allen et al. (2002) Other structural elements were kept the same in these two walls
pointed out that the number of instrumented field walls with and are summarized in Table 1.
geosynthetic reinforcement was sparse. For instrumented walls The instrumentation program included soil extensometers to
with large reinforcement spacing, the measured database is even measure horizontal displacements of the reinforced fill, load cells
more limited. A strategy to make up the lack of physical measure- on the geogrids and the wire meshes to monitor tensile forces in
ments of MSE walls with large reinforcement spacing and improve reinforcement layers, vertical and horizontal pressure cells to
the understanding of their behavior is to develop numerical models measure earth pressures, and survey targets along the gabion fac-
which are verified against physical measurements. The calculated ing to observe wall facing displacements. The location of the
results from the verified numerical models can be used to extend instrumentation can be found in Fig. 1. The performance of two
the limited database of instrumented case studies to a wider range walls during and after the end of construction was monitored and
of reinforced soil and reinforcement properties, reinforcement recorded. The field data used in this study were the measurements
spacing, loading conditions, and configurations. obtained after the construction.
Numerical models have been used to analyze the performance
of MSE walls in the literature. For example, Ling et al. (2000) con- 3. Numerical modeling
ducted a finite element study of a geosynthetic-reinforced soil
retaining wall with concrete-block facing. Hatami and Bathurst 3.1. General
(2005) developed and verified a two-dimensional numerical
model for the analysis of geosynthetic-reinforced soil segmental Two-dimensional finite-difference program FLAC2D 5.0 (Itasca,
walls under working stress conditions against large-scale walls 2005) was employed to simulate the MSE gabion walls with
tested in the laboratory. Huang et al. (2013, 2014) developed three- different reinforcement spacing. Fig. 2 shows the numerical model
dimensional finite difference models to simulate laterally loaded and mesh details for the simulation of the field wall with 1 m
single and group piles in MSE walls in the field. reinforcement spacing. For brevity, another numerical model for
In the current study, the numerical models based on a finite the 2 m spacing wall was also developed while not shown here
difference method were developed to simulate the behavior of two because the only difference was the reinforcement spacing and
carefully instrumented and monitored MSE walls reported by other details were kept the same as in the model for the 1 m
Tanyu et al. (2016). The vertical spacing between the primary spacing wall. The total length and height of the numerical model
reinforcement changed from 1 m to 2 m in two walls while other were 76.2 and 24.5 m, respectively. The wall embedment depth was
properties were kept the same. The results calculated from the 0.7 m. The mechanical connection between the geogrid and the
numerical models will be compared with the measured wall facing gabion unit was simulated in the numerical model, where the end
displacements, horizontal fill displacements, and tensile forces in point of the strip element (simulating the geogrid) was rigidly
the geogrid and in the wire mesh. After the verification of the nu- bonded to the grid point of the facing.
merical models, the calculated results will also be compared with The boundary conditions are considered in the numerical
the theoretical results relating to the earth pressure distributions models as follows: (1) the bottom of the foundation soil was fixed
and the locations of maximum tensile strains in the primary rein- in both horizontal and vertical directions and (2) the two sides of
forcement. Seismic analysis of mechanically stabilized gabion walls the foundation soil and the left side of the retained soil were only
with different vertical reinforcement spacing has been conducted fixed in the horizontal direction. The numerical model simulated
296 M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

Fig. 1. Instrumentation layout of the MSE gabion walls in the field: (a) 1 m reinforcement spacing; (b) 2 m reinforcement spacing.
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 297

Table 1
Structural elements in the Izmir Walls.

Structural elements Materials Dimensions

Primary reinforcement High strength geogrid Length: 17.5 m

Secondary reinforcement Double twisted steel wire mesh Length: 3.0 m
Gabion unit Mesh basket filled with boulders 0.5 1.0 m (thickness length) in the ten bottom layers; 1.0 1.0 m (thickness length)
in the ten upper layers; 0.5 0.5 m (thickness length) in the two top layers

Fig. 2. Numerical model simulating the field MSE gabion wall with 1 m reinforcement spacing.

the field construction sequence of the MSE gabion wall in seven- Jiang and Wang (2011) conducted compression tests and direct
teen steps. The first step established the foundation and the shear tests on gabion units and obtained the cohesion of 560 kPa
retained soil before the placement of the fill material. The second to and the friction angle of 44.8 for the gabion units. In the numerical
the seventeenth steps placed the fill and the gabion units in layers models, the cohesion and friction angle at 560 kPa and 45 ,
with a thickness of 1.0 m. The primary and secondary reinforce- respectively, were used for the simulation of gabion units. Table 2
ment layers were also created in steps as they reached to the shows the soil properties used in the numerical models.
designed elevations. The numerical model at each step was Strip elements in the FLAC2D were used to simulate primary
computed to reach force equilibrium before the placement of the reinforcement (the geogrid) and secondary reinforcement (the wire
next layer of fill, gabion units, and reinforcement layer. The calcu- mesh). Strip elements represent the behavior of thin reinforcing
lated results presented in the following sections were obtained strips placed in layers within soil to provide structural support
from the numerical model after the completion of the wall con- (Itasca, 2005). The strip elements can yield in tension or
struction at the maximum wall elevation of 16.0 m. compression and a tensile failure strain limit can be defined.
However, strips cannot sustain bending moments. The shear
behavior at the strip-soil interface is defined by a nonlinear shear
3.2. Soil and reinforcement properties
failure envelope that varies as a function of a confining pressure.
Table 3 summarizes the properties of the strip elements for the
The foundation and the retained soil, the reinforced fill, and the
simulation of primary reinforcement (the geogrid) and the sec-
gabion unit were modeled as linearly elastic-perfectly plastic ma-
ondary reinforcement (the wire mesh).
terials with the Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria. Dobson and
Nakagawa (2005) conducted a series of experimental tests to
evaluate the properties of a tuff rock. Using their work as a refer- 3.3. Interface properties
ence, the Young's modulus (E) and Poisson's ratio (n) for such tuff
rock were assumed as 20 GPa and 0.23 in the numerical models, The shear stiffness at the strip-soil interface was 90000 kPa/m.
respectively. The cohesion reduction at the strip-soil interface was considered
In the two-dimensional models, a plane-strain friction angle of and determined based on the equation as follows:
the fill material was used to better reflect field boundary conditions
(Kulhawy and Mayne, 1990). The plane-strain friction angle of the ca ¼ c,Ci (2)
fill was converted from the laboratory triaxial tests and was esti-
mated as follows: where ca ¼ Interface cohesion, c ¼ fill cohesion, and Ci ¼ interaction
coefficient, which was assumed to be 0.8 in this study.
f ¼ 1:1ftx ¼ 1:1 39:0 ¼ 42:9 (1) Interface elements were introduced to model the strength and
stiffness between the gabion unit and the reinforced fill, between
where ftx is the triaxial friction angle of the fill. the gabion units, and between the gabion unit and the foundation
The fill material was considered having low cohesion of 5.0 kPa soil. Table 4 shows interface properties used in the numerical
due to the existence of fine contents. The dilation effect of the fill models. The shear strength reduction at the interface was consid-
was also considered in the numerical model with a dilation angle of ered and the interface friction angle (d) was determined based on
6.0 . the equation as follows:
298 M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

Table 2
Soil properties used in the models.

Parameters Reinforced fill Gabion Foundation and retained soil

Unit weight (kN/m3) 20.5 17.0 18.0

Cohesion (kPa) 5 560 7500
Friction angle (degrees) 42.9 45.0 23.0
Dilation angle (degrees) 6.0 e e
Elastic modulus (MPa) 40 20 20000
Poisson's ratio 0.30 0.30 0.23

Table 3 displacement was obtained from the horizontal displacement of

Properties for primary and secondary reinforcement layers. each grid point of the wall facing at the elevation interval of 0.5 m.
Parameters Geogrid Wire mesh In the field measurement, the wall facing displacement was
Calculation width (m) 1.0 1.0
monitored by recording the coordination of the survey targets
Number of strips per calculation width 1.0 1.0 installed along the facing. The locations of survey targets can be
Strip width (m) 1.0 1.0 found in Fig. 1. Two sets of readings were taken after the con-
Strip thickness (m) 0.0024 0.0027 struction of the walls. One reading was taken immediately after the
Tensile stiffness (kN/m) 6200 10000
end of the construction and the other one was six months after the
Tensile strength (kN/m) 412 51
Elastic modulus (MPa) 2600 3700 end of the construction (Tanyu et al., 2016). The horizontal move-
Interface normal and shear stiffness (kN/m/m) 90000 90000 ment between these two readings was defined as the relative
Soil interface cohesion (kN/m) 4.0 4.0 horizontal displacement of the wall facing and was compared with
the calculated displacement obtained from the numerical models.
The range of the measured displacements for both 1 m and 2 m
spacing walls was from 10 to 40 mm. The displacement differences
tand ¼ 0:8tanðfmin Þ (3) between adjacent survey targets could vary up to 20 mm due to the
movements of the boulders filled in the gabion units. The variation
where fmin is the minimum friction angle of the neighboring of facing displacement in the 2 m spacing wall was larger than that
materials. for the 1 m spacing wall. Because the average facing displacement
The interface normal and shear stiffness were set to ten times was large for the 2 m spacing wall and the horizontal confinement
the equivalent stiffness of the stiffest neighboring zone and calcu- for fill and gabion units in the 2 m spacing was less effective than
lated based on the equation as follows (Itasca, 2005):

kn ¼ ks ¼ max½10ðK þ 1:33GÞ=Dzmin (4)

where kn and ks are the interface normal and shear stiffness,

respectively; K and G are the bulk and shear moduli, respectively;
and Dzmin is the smallest width of an adjoining zone in the normal
direction near the interface.

4. Results and discussion

Two numerical models were developed to simulate the field

MSE gabion walls with the vertical reinforcement spacing of 1 and
2 m, respectively. Each wall was modeled using the same material
properties while the only difference was the vertical spacing be-
tween the primary reinforcement (the geogrid). For brevity, only
selected field and numerical results are presented and discussed.
The main purposes in this section are to compare the measured and
calculated wall performance after construction (e.g., calibration of
the numerical model) and to compare the performance between
walls with different reinforcement spacing.

4.1. Wall facing displacements

Fig. 3 shows the measured and calculated relative horizontal Fig. 3. Measured and calculated relative horizontal displacements of the wall facing
displacements of the wall facing after construction. The calculated after construction.

Table 4
Interface properties.

Parameters Gabion-fill Gabion-gabion Gabion-foundation

Friction angle (degrees) 36.6 38.7 19.0

Cohesion (kPa) 4 10 450
Normal and shear stiffness (MPa/m) 10770 540 463660
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 299

that for the 1 m spacing wall. However, the calculated results distributed at the distances of 1.5, 3.0, and 6.0 m away from the
showed much clear distributions of the facing displacements at back of the facing.
different elevations. Fig. 3 shows the calculated maximum facing As expected, the maximum fill displacements occurred near the
displacements for the 1 m and 2 m spacing walls were 30.7 and back of the facing for both walls and then decreased significantly
36.4 mm, respectively. The maximum facing displacement was with the distance away from the facing. At the elevation of 5.5 m,
observed at the wall elevation of 7.0 m for both cases. There was the maximum calculated displacements for the 1 m and 2 m
detectable difference between the measured and calculated dis- spacing walls were 22.9 and 27.3 mm, respectively. Large fill
placements for the 2 m spacing wall because of the nature of the displacement happened in the 2 m spacing wall due to the large
gabion units used as the wall facing. However, from a practical spacing between primary reinforcement, which also caused large
point of view, the numerical results (calculated) were considered facing displacement.
reasonably matching the field measurements. Fig. 4(a) shows the comparison of the measured and calculated
fill displacements for the 1 m spacing wall. The calculated results
closely match the field measurements relating to the trend of the
4.2. Horizontal fill displacements displacement change at different distances. The horizontal fill
displacement finally decreased to 11.6 mm at the distance of 6.0 m,
Fig. 4 shows the measured and calculated horizontal displace- which was only half to the maximum displacement.
ments of the reinforced fill. Three multi-bar soil extensometers Fig. 4(b) shows the fill displacements for the 2 m spacing wall at
were installed to measure the horizontal displacements of the fill at different wall elevations. The fill displacements for the 2 m spacing
the locations shown in Fig. 1. For the 1 m spacing wall, one soil wall showed a similar trend as those for the 1 m spacing wall at the
extensometer was installed at the elevation of 5.5 m. For the 2 m same elevation (5.5 m) and varied from 27.3 to 11.5 mm with the
spacing wall, two soil extensometers were installed at the eleva- increasing distance. However, the fill displacements at the wall
tions of 5.5 and 10.5 m, respectively. The first bar of the exten- elevation of 10.5 m varied from 24.5 to 13.3 mm with the increasing
someter was fixed right behind the gabion unit and other bars were distance. The maximum calculated displacement at the elevation of
5.5 m (e.g., 27.3 mm) was larger than the maximum displacement
at the elevation of 10.5 m (e.g., 24.3 mm), which was consistent
with the facing displacement distribution (31.0 and 26.4 mm at the
wall elevations of 5.5 and 10.5 m, respectively).

4.3. Tensile forces in the geogrid

Fig. 5 shows the measured and calculated tensile forces devel-

oped in the primary reinforcement (the geogrid) for the 1 m and
2 m reinforcement spacing walls at different elevations (2.0, 4.0,
8.0, 10.0, and 12.0 m). There were a total of 34 load cells used to
measure the tensile forces in the geogrid and three of them failed to
work after the construction. The location of each load cell can be
found in Fig. 1. The measured tensile forces are compared with the
calculated forces obtained from the numerical models. Generally,
the tension forces of the geogrid developed near the wall facing
were higher than those at the rear end of the reinforcement due to
the large deformations in the front area.
For the 1 m reinforcement spacing wall, the calculated tensile
forces generally agreed with the field data for the wall elevation
equal or lower than 8.0 m. However, at the wall elevation higher
than 8.0 m, the measured tensile forces in the geogrids were higher
than those calculated by the numerical method. For the 2 m spacing
wall, the calculated tensile forces were in general agreement with
the field data at different wall elevations except for the elevation of
12.0 m.
The calculated tensile forces developing in the 2 m reinforce-
ment spacing wall were higher than those in the 1 m reinforcement
spacing wall. Table 5 summarizes the maximum tensile forces of
the geogrid for both walls at different elevations. High tensile forces
developed at the elevations between 4.0 and 8.0 m due to the large
deformations in these sections. The maximum tensile forces in the
2 m reinforcement spacing wall increased in the order of 1.5 times
as compared with the corresponding forces in the 1 m reinforce-
ment spacing for the wall elevations higher than 2.0 m. The
maximum calculated tensile force was 19.8 kN/m, which occurred
at the elevation of 8.0 m for the 2 m reinforcement spacing wall and
was much lower than the tensile strength of the geogrid used in the
project (e.g., 400 kN/m).
Fig. 4. Measured and calculated horizontal displacements of the reinforced fill for
walls with the reinforcement spacing of: (a) 1 m; (b) 2 m.
300 M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

Fig. 5. Measured and calculated tensile forces in the geogrids for walls with different reinforcement spacing at the wall elevations of: (a) 2.0 m; (b) 4.0 m; (c) 8.0 m; (d) 10.0 m; (e)
12.0 m.

4.4. Tensile forces in the mesh developing in the secondary reinforcement (the wire mesh) for the
1 m and 2 m reinforcement spacing walls at different elevations.
Fig. 6 shows the measured and calculated tensile forces There were totally eighteen load cells used to measure the tensile
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 301

Table 5
Maximum tensile forces in the geogrids for walls at different elevations.

Elevation (m) 2.0 4.0 8.0 10.0 12.0

Maximum tensile force in 1 m spacing wall (kN/m) 8.3 12.2 11.7 9.2 4.8
Maximum tensile force in 2 m spacing wall (kN/m) 9.4 18.3 19.8 13.7 7.6
Maximum tensile force ratio 1.1 1.5 1.7 1.5 1.6

Note: maximum tensile force ratio was defined as the ratio of the maximum tensile force in 2 m spacing wall to the maximum tensile force in 1 m spacing wall.

reinforcement spacing walls were 14.3 and 16.2 kN/m, respectively.

At the wall elevation of 4.0 m, the maximum calculated tensile
forces for 1 m and 2 m reinforcement spacing walls were 13.6 and
16.4 kN/m, respectively. The maximum tensile force ratios, defined
as the ratio of the maximum tensile force in the 2 m reinforcement
spacing wall to that in the 1 m reinforcement spacing wall, were 1.1
and 1.2 at the wall elevations of 2.0 and 4.0 m, respectively. The
maximum tensile force ratio for the wire mesh was much smaller
than that for the geogrid (e.g., 1.5). It appears that the vertical
spacing between primary reinforcement (the geogrid) did not have
an obvious effect on the increase of the tensile forces in the sec-
ondary reinforcement (the wire mesh). The main purpose of the
secondary reinforcement was to provide the facing stability (local
stability at the wall facing) and additional horizontal forces induced
by the increased spacing were carried by the primary reinforce-
ment, which provided the internal and global stability of the wall.

4.5. Earth pressure distributions

Fig. 7 shows the calculated results for the horizontal earth

pressures acting against the gabion facing. As reported in Tanyu
et al. (2016), all pressure cells (both horizontal and vertical) were
damaged during the wall construction because they showed high
values during the fill compaction but then decreased to zero. Earth
pressures presented in this section were obtained from the nu-
merical models. The calculated horizontal earth pressure is
compared with the horizontal active earth pressure and the hori-
zontal earth pressure at rest, respectively. The horizontal active
earth pressure was determined based on the Rankine’s theory as
follows:

gzð1 sin∅Þ
sra ¼ (5)
ð1 þ sin∅Þ

where sra is the horizontal active earth pressure, g is the unit

Fig. 6. Measured and calculated tensile forces in the wire meshes for walls with
different reinforcement spacing at the wall elevations of: (a) 2.0 m; (b) 4.0 m.

forces in the wire mesh and three of them failed to work after the
construction. The location of each load cell can be found in Fig. 1.
The measured data at the same wall elevation for different spacing
walls were selected, however, two load cells installed at the
elevation of 10.0 m for 1 m reinforcement spacing wall were
damaged after the construction. Therefore, the available measured
data at the elevations of 2.0 and 4.0 m were selected and are
compared with the numerical results.
The calculated tensile forces generally agreed with the
measured data for both walls at different elevations. The calculated
results show that the tensile forces in the 2 m reinforcement
spacing wall were slightly higher (as may be expected) than the
forces in the 1 m reinforcement spacing wall. At the wall elevation
of 2.0 m, the maximum calculated tensile forces for the 1 m and 2 m
Fig. 7. Horizontal earth pressures acting against the gabion facing.
302 M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

weight of the fill, z is the depth below the fill surface, and ∅ is the spacing walls. The measured horizontal earth pressure coefficient
plane friction angle of the fill. ratios were generally less than 1.0 except for one location at the
The horizontal earth pressure at rest was determined based on a wall elevation of 12.0 m in the 1 m spacing wall. The calculated
theoretical solution as follows: horizontal earth pressure coefficient ratios were less than 0.5 at
different wall elevations for both walls. It should be mentioned that
sr0 ¼ gzð1 sin∅Þ (6) the distribution and magnitude of the horizontal earth pressure
coefficient ratio for the 2 m spacing wall were similar to those for
where sr0 is the horizontal earth pressure at rest. the 1 m spacing wall, even though the maximum tensile force of the
Fig. 7 shows that the magnitude and distribution pattern of the geogrid in the 2 m spacing wall was much higher than that in the
horizontal earth pressures developing in both 1 m and 2 m spacing 1 m spacing wall (generally 1.5 times higher as discussed previ-
walls are similar. For the wall elevation higher than 2.0 m, the ously). The reduced reinforcement force and then the horizontal
horizontal earth pressure was close to the active earth pressure earth pressure coefficient might result from the contribution of the
because relatively large horizontal displacements developed in this gabion wall facing and the embedment of the wall.
area and the reinforced fill nearly reached the active earth pressure Fig. 9 shows the distribution of the horizontal earth pressures of
state. However, the horizontal earth pressure below the elevation the reinforced fill at three wall elevations (2.0, 5.0, and 8.0 m) for
of 2.0 m was much higher than the active earth pressure and was the 1 m and 2 m spacing walls. The calculated horizontal earth
close to the earth pressure at rest because of the small fill pressure is compared with the active horizontal earth pressure and
displacement and the effect of embedment depth. the horizontal earth pressure at rest, which were determined by
A horizontal earth pressure coefficient ratio (a), defined as the Eqs. (5) and (6), respectively. The magnitude and distribution of
ratio of the calculated horizontal earth pressure coefficient (Kr ) to horizontal earth pressures for the 2 m reinforcement spacing wall
the coefficient of horizontal earth pressure at active state were similar to those for the 1 m reinforcement spacing wall except

for the locations near the wall facing, where the horizontal earth
Ka ¼ ð1sin∅Þ
ð1þsin∅Þ
, was commonly used to evaluate the maximum
pressure for the 2 m reinforcement spacing wall was slightly lower
tension in the reinforcement (Han, 2015). Based on the horizontal than that for the 1 m reinforcement spacing wall. This is because
earth pressure distribution and force equilibrium, the maximum the horizontal fill displacements in these locations were larger in
tensile force of the primary reinforcement (the geogrid) can be the 2 m reinforcement spacing wall than those in the 1 m rein-
determined as follows: forcement spacing wall. Large horizontal displacement indicated
the fill approached to the active earth pressure state, thereby
Tmax ¼ Kr gzSv (7) reducing the horizontal earth pressure in the 2 m spacing wall.
Fig. 9(b) and (c) show the horizontal earth pressures developing
where z is the depth of the geogrid below the fill surface, and Sv is close to the wall facing are lower than the active earth pressures at
the reinforcement spacing. the wall elevations of 5.0 and 8.0 m. The reason for this phenom-
Therefore, the horizontal earth pressure coefficient ratio can be enon is that low cohesion (e.g., 5 kPa) was used in the simulation of
calculated using the maximum tensile force in each reinforcement fill material but was not considered in the determination of the
as follows: active earth pressure in Eq. (5). The facing batter could also reduce
the horizontal earth pressures.
Kr Tmax ð1 þ sin∅Þ Fig. 10 shows the distribution of the vertical earth pressures of
a¼ ¼ (8) the reinforced fill at three wall elevations (2.0, 5.0, and 8.0 m) for
Ka gzSv ð1 sin∅Þ
the 1 m and 2 m reinforcement spacing walls. The calculated ver-
Fig. 8 shows the measured and calculated (numerical results) tical earth pressure is compared with the theoretical overburden
horizontal earth pressure coefficient ratios for the 1 m and 2 m pressure determined as follows:

sz ¼ gz (9)

where sz is the overburden pressure.

The calculated vertical earth pressures were generally close to
the theoretical overburden pressures for both walls at different wall
elevations. Fig. 10(b) and (c) show the vertical earth pressures
developing near the facing are lower than the overburden pres-
sures and there is a local increase for the vertical earth pressure at a
distance of 4.0 m from the back of the facing. This phenomenon is
because the interface shear transfer and the local arching devel-
oped between the soil and the gabion facing, which resulted in
down-drag forces on the facing. A similar pattern of a local increase
of vertical earth pressure behind the facing has been reported for
the walls built on a rigid foundations (Bathurst and Benjamin, 1990;
Tajiri et al., 1996; Huang et al., 2009; Damians et al., 2015).

4.6. Location of maximum tensile strain in reinforcement

The maximum tension line can be used to predict the potential

failure plane of the MSE wall. The maximum tensile strain line was
determined based on the maximum tensile strains in the primary
Fig. 8. Measured and calculated horizontal earth pressure coefficient ratios for walls reinforcement (the geogrid) calculated by the numerical method.
with different reinforcement spacing. This line was generated by connecting the locations of the
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 303

Fig. 9. Horizontal earth pressures within the reinforced fill for different reinforcement spacing walls at the elevation of: (a) 2.0 m; (b) 5.0 m; (c) 8.0 m.

Fig. 10. Vertical earth pressures within the reinforced fill for different reinforcement spacing walls at the elevations of: (a) 2.0 m; (b) 5.0 m; (c) 8.0 m.
304 M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306

maximum tensile strains in the geogrids at neighboring layers (at angle b ¼ 450 þ ∅=2 ¼ 66:50 (∅ ¼ 42:90 was the plane friction
different wall elevations). Fig. 11 shows the maximum tensile line angle of the fill). The calculated maximum tensile lines are close to
for the 1 m and 2 m reinforcement spacing walls. The maximum Rankine's failure lines for both walls with different reinforcement
tensile line is compared with the Rankine's failure line with the spacing.

Fig. 11. Maximum strain lines of the primary reinforcement for walls with the reinforcement spacing of: (a) 1 m; (b) 2 m.
M. Gu et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 45 (2017) 294e306 305

5. Conclusions State Highway Officials, Washington, DC, USA.

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