Influence of different parameters on back-to-back mechanically stabilized earth walls

Back-to-Back Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls can sustain significant loadings and deformations due to the interaction mechanisms which occur between the backfill material and the reinforcement elements. These walls are commonly used in embankments approaching bridges, ramps and railways. The performance of a reinforced wall depends on numerous parameters, including the ones defining the soil, the reinforcement and the soil/reinforcement interaction behavior. The focus of this study is to investigate numerically the behavior of back-to-back mechanically stabilized earth walls considering synthetic and metallic strips. A two-dimensional finite difference numerical modeling is considered. The role of the soil friction angle, the Soil material quality and the wall width to the height ratio are investigated in a parametric study. Their effects on the soil/strip shear displacements and tensile forces on the reinforcements are presented. The behavior of the reinforcement strips in back-to-back reinforced walls strongly depends on the distance between walls and on the soil parameters.