Prediction of reinforced soil retaining wall deformations: A review of two procedures

A number of methods have been developed for designing geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) walls. Most concentrate on the internal and external stability of the structure, with little, if any, emphasis on deformation. The numerous factors that influence deformation and the limited number of instrumented case histories contribute to the difficulty of developing reliable deformation prediction methods. Two procedures that have been proposed for predicting reinforced soil wall deformations are by Christopher, et al. (1990), as modified by Christopher (1993), and Chew and Mitchell (1994). Sixteen case histories reported in the literature were used to assess the accuracy of these methods. Predicted deformations ranged from 40% to 460% of actual deformations for walls constructed with cohesionless soils.