Several reinforced soil wall failures were reported to have occurred at facing connections with reinforcing layers. These failures were generally attributed to reinforcement downdrag, which accompanies differential settlements between facings and backfills in reinforced soil walls. Overlooking reinforcement downdrag forces in design can result in underestimation of reinforcement loads at facing connections, which are an evident cause of several wall failures due to inadequacy of design and/or construction protocols. This study presents an analytical framework developed based on an analogy between reinforcement downdrag effect on facings of reinforced soil walls and soil friction effect on interfaces of rigid retaining walls. Specifically, the developed framework provides predictions of soil stresses and reinforcement loads at facings of reinforced soil walls that can be used in design to account for reinforcement downdrag. It was concluded that model predictions of horizontal earth pressure magnitudes at the facings of three reinforced soil walls matched well with field measurements. Finally, a peripheral analytical method was developed to predict differential settlements between facings and backfills in reinforced soil walls.

据报道，在与加固层的面连接处发生了几次加固土墙失效。这些失败通常归因于钢筋向下阻力，它伴随着钢筋土墙中饰面和回填土之间的不同沉降。忽略设计中的钢筋向下阻力可能会导致对面对连接处的钢筋载荷的低估，这是由于设计和/或施工协议不足而导致数个墙体失效的明显原因。本研究提出了一个基于对加筋土墙饰面的加筋向下阻力效应和刚性挡土墙界面上的土壤摩擦效应之间的类比而开发的分析框架。具体来说，开发的框架提供了对加筋土墙饰面的土壤应力和加筋荷载的预测，可用于设计以解决加筋下陷。得出的结论是，模型预测的三个加筋土墙面的水平土压力大小与现场测量结果相吻合。最后，开发了一种外围分析方法来预测加筋土墙中饰面和回填土之间的差异沉降。