Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Walls with Sustainable Backfills

Reinforced soil walls are cost-effective alternatives to earth-retaining structures which can accommodate more settlements than conventional retaining wall systems. Ideally, freely draining granular materials such as sand are used as the backfills. But, scarcity of ideal granular materials necessitated the researchers to explore other alternatives. A large quantity of construction and demolition waste (CDW) is being generated in India as well as in other parts of the world. In this study, the feasibility of using CDW as a backfill for geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls has been attempted. The geotechnical properties of CDW were determined in order to ascertain whether their properties comply with existing specifications. It was observed that the geotechnical properties of CDW meet the requirements of an ideal backfill material for MSE walls mandated by various standards. Further, the numerical studies were conducted to study the deformation behavior of reinforced soil wall with CDW backfill immediately after construction. The assumptions made in the conventional design regarding the failure mechanism were also investigated. The paper highlights the potential use of processed CDW as a sustainable backfill material for reinforced walls.