2016 Volume 2 Issue 64 Pages 2186-2191
Reinforced retaining walls were slightly damaged during recent Japanese earthquakes. Therefore, it is important to clarify the post-earthquake loading capacity of reinforced retaining walls to evaluate the safety, stability, and availability of damaged walls. Using displacement and/or loading-controlled pullout tests, we examined the pullout behaviour of a strip under constant pullout loading in a compacted soil layer that was subjected to various pullout histories. This paper evaluates the post-earthquake loading capacity of a steel reinforced retaining wall based on these test results. The primary conclusions are as follows: 1) when the pullout load did not exceed peak value, the resultant pullout displacement was only 3 to 6 mm; 2) the pullout behaviour of the strip was not significantly affected by the previous pullout; 3) unless the pullout load did not surpass peak or yield values in the relation between pullout load and displacement, even after the earthquake, the reinforced retaining wall maintained its loading capacity to some extent.
