Nonlinear Investigation of Behavior of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Retaining Wall Using FEM

Numerical models utilizing the finite element technique through Plaxis program package were conducted in this study to investigate the behavior of a concrete retaining wall in sand soil. The proposed numerical model intended to predict the behavior of retaining wall under many factors. A parametric study is focus on the effect of various parameters on the behavior of concrete retaining walls. These parameters included the wall height, geogrid reinforcement, embedment ratio of geogrid and surcharge loads on top of backfilling. Three different heights were tested D (4, 6, 8) m and four values of surcharge were tried (100, 200, 300, 400) kN/m2. The geogrid layer was furnished in three locations according to the height of the wall h/D (0.25, 0.5, 0.75) to investigate the embedment ratio on the retaining wall. It was found that increasing the wall height leads to increase the active pressure of soil and the stem of wall will tilt away from the backfill. The foundation of the wall was rotated counterclockwise when the height of wall increased from 4 to 8 m. The location of external load is effective in increasing the value of displacement and these values are reduced when the distance of load moved away from wall stem. The presence of geogrids reduces both vertical and horizontal displacements. The geogrids change the direction of horizontal displacement at bottom of the stem and the movement changed from negative to positive direction due to redistribution of active pressure on the wall due to geogrid effect.