A Consideration of Reinforcement Mechanism of Restraint in Reinforced Earth

Abstract

A highly complex mechanism of soil reinforcement is not fully explicated so far. A restraint effect which is one of the major functions of reinforcement materials such as geosynthetics is discussed theoretically and experimentally for establishing a rational design in the case of a reinforced embankment construction with walls or panels.
An analytical estimation method using pseudo-confining lateral pressure and pseudo-cohesion is presented in this paper. It was found that the proposed method was able to estimate quantitatively the reduction of earth pressure behind the wall and moreover the decrease in the pressure was concerned in shifting its slip line. The sufficient reliability of the proposed calculation method was also confirmed from several full-scale experimental data.