Failure of Geotextile-Reinforced Walls in Centrifuge Model Tests

This paper presents the results of centrifuge tests performed to investigate the behavior of geotextile-reinforced soil walls beyond stress conditions. The models were built using nonwoven fabrics as reinforcement layers and dry sand as backfill. Digital image analysis techniques were used to determine the displacement of sand markers placed along the reinforcements. The models were loaded until failure by increasing centrifugal acceleration, and the movements of the sand markers were used to determine the strain distributions along the reinforcement layers. The results revealed that stresses redistribute among reinforcement layers as models approach failure. Current design methods for GRS walls were found to be conservative when applied to predict the behavior of the reduced-scale models.