Abstract The assessment of the internal stability of geosynthetic-reinforced earth retaining walls has historically been investigated in previous studies assuming dry backfills. However, the majority of the failures of these structures are caused by the water presence. The studies including the water presence in the backfill are scarce and often consider saturated backfills. In reality, most soils are unsaturated in nature and the matric suction plays an important role in the wall's stability. This paper investigates the internal seismic stability of geosynthetic-reinforced unsaturated earth retaining walls. The groundwater level can be located at any reinforced backfill depth. Several nonlinear equations relating the unsaturated soil shear strength to the matric suction and different backfill type of soils are considered in this study. The log-spiral failure mechanism generated by the point-to-point method is considered. The upper-bound theorem of the limit analysis is used to evaluate the strength required to maintain the reinforced soil walls stability and the seismic loading are represented by the pseudo-dynamic approach. A parametric study showed that the required reinforcement strength is influenced by several parameters such as the soil friction angle, the horizontal seismic coefficient, the water table level, the matric suction distribution as well as the soil types and the unsaturated soils shear strength.

中文翻译：

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土工合成材料加筋非饱和土墙抗震上限分析

摘要 在以往的研究中，假设干回填土，对土工合成材料加筋土挡土墙的内部稳定性评估进行了调查。然而，这些结构的大部分故障是由水的存在引起的。包括回填土中存在的水在内的研究很少，并且经常考虑饱和回填土。实际上，大多数土壤本质上是不饱和的，基质吸力对墙体的稳定性起着重要作用。本文研究了土工合成材料加筋非饱和土挡土墙的内部抗震稳定性。地下水位可以位于任何加固回填深度。本研究考虑了几个非线性方程，将非饱和土壤剪切强度与基质吸力和不同回填类型的土壤联系起来。考虑了点对点方法产生的对数螺旋失效机制。极限分析的上限定理用于评估保持加筋土墙稳定性所需的强度，地震荷载由拟动力法表示。参数研究表明，所需的加固强度受几个参数的影响，如土壤摩擦角、水平地震系数、地下水位、基质吸力分布以及土壤类型和非饱和土的剪切强度。极限分析的上限定理用于评估保持加筋土墙稳定性所需的强度，地震荷载由拟动力法表示。参数研究表明，所需的加固强度受几个参数的影响，如土壤摩擦角、水平地震系数、地下水位、基质吸力分布以及土壤类型和非饱和土的剪切强度。极限分析的上限定理用于评估保持加筋土墙稳定性所需的强度，地震荷载由拟动力法表示。参数研究表明，所需的加固强度受几个参数的影响，如土壤摩擦角、水平地震系数、地下水位、基质吸力分布以及土壤类型和非饱和土的剪切强度。