Design Charts for Reinforced Soil Slopes Considering Rotational and Sliding Failure Mechanisms

For the safe and economical design of a reinforced earth embankment, it is necessary to accurately determine the reinforcement to be provided at the top and bottom of the embankment as well as the maximum tensile force to be resisted by the reinforcement satisfying a desired factor of safety. In the present work, the top reinforcement length, the maximum tensile force to be resisted by the reinforcement, and the force coefficient are determined from the rotational stability analysis of the embankment. The minimum top reinforcement length has also been estimated considering its pull-out failure capacity. The bottom length of the reinforcement is determined considering the sliding failure mode at the base of the embankment. The effects of pore pressure loadings are further incorporated into the analysis by considering different values of pore pressure ratio. The estimated bottom length of the reinforcement obtained from the sliding failure analysis is checked to prevent deep-seated failure of the embankment. Detailed charts of top and bottom reinforcement lengths, reinforcement length considering pull-out failure as well as the force coefficient are provided considering different combinations of soil's strength parameters and pore pressure loading for different slope angles.