Numerical analysis of a large reinforced soil structure by explicit finite difference codes

A numerical investigation was carried out to analyse a 22m high “barmat” reinforced soil retaining wall. A computer program, FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua), was used to perform the analysis. Different failure mechanisms were observed due to the influence of the soil-reinforcement bond stiffness. The significance of the explicit timestepping to a converged solution was also revealed. The computed results were compared with those obtained by the conventional limit equilibrium method.