This report describes the construction and instrumentation of a 4.4 m high reinforced soil wall. It then describes the response of the wall to a differential settlement (sagging) of about 1 in 38 along the face of the wall and 1 in 42 perpendicular to the face of the wall, and goes on to describe the behaviour of the wall during its re-levelling. The wall was built from hexagonal shaped reinforced concrete facing units, galvanised mild steel reinforcing strips and a crushed limestone aggregate. The performance of the wall during construction was largely as expected. At depths of cover greater than between about one and two metres, the mean tension developed in the reinforcements at points close to the back of the facing units was about equivalent to at-rest earth pressures. However compaction operations generated higher earth pressures at shallower depths of cover. The performance of the wall during the settlement stage was good; the imposed settlement did not lead to gross distortion of the face of the wall nor did it generate excessive bending stresses at the connection between the facing units and strips. However, the tensions in the reinforcements increased significantly through the settlement and re-levelling stages. Current methods of design do not explicitly take account of increases in tension due to differential movement. (Author/publisher)
Abstract