Performance Enhancement of a Retaining Wall with Geofoam Laid in Different Orientations

Geofoam, when substituting soil, reduces lateral static load due to its lightweight and compressible nature. The alignment and the orientation of the geofoam greatly affect the deflection of the wall. This paper investigates the influence of different geofoam orientations on the load-deformation characteristics of the reinforced retaining wall. Static load tests were performed when sand or geomaterial prepared from sand, bottom ash, and plastic strips were used as a backfill material. Different orientations were explored when geofoam of densities 11D, 16D, and 34D where D is the density of geofoam were laid in different directions. A layer of compressible inclusion with a thickness of 10 cm was laid either in the vertical direction alone or in both vertical and horizontal directions. Another option was to use a 10-cm-thick geofoam laid in the vertical direction and geofoam strips of thickness 2, 3, or 5 cm laid in layers. The reinforcement effect was analyzed using bearing capacity ratio, vertical displacement reduction, and wall deflection reduction. Results indicated that higher-density geofoam is more efficient in reducing settlement values and increasing bearing capacity. Lower-density geofoam excelled in wall deflection reduction. The most substantial improvements were observed for 10-cm-thick 16D geofoam laid in the vertical direction, accompanied by 5-cm-thick strips laid in three layers in the horizontal direction. This combination reduced the settlement and wall deflection to 78.23% and 98.81%, respectively.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-024-00401-x
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/21967202
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
• Authors:
  • Vishwakarma, Khushboo
  • 0000-0002-4329-207X
  • Shukla, Shruti
  • 0009-0000-7036-2566
• Publication Date: 2024-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 3129-3159
• Serial:
  • Transportation Infrastructure Geotechnology
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue Number: 5
  • Publisher: Springer Publishing
  • ISSN: 2196-7202
  • EISSN: 2196-7210
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/40515

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Geotechnical engineering; Performance; Polystyrene; Retaining walls
• Subject Areas: Geotechnology; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01933008
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 9 2024 10:20AM