Ricerc@Sapienza

There is general evidence that the good performance of geosynthetic-reinforced earth retaining walls (GRWs) observed after strong seismic events can be attributed to their capacity to redistribute seismic-induced deformations within the reinforced zone, provided that the reinforcements are characterised by adequate extensional ductility. Therefore, it is desirable to promote the acti-vation of internal (or local) plastic mechanisms, involving the reinforcement strength, since the design phase. In this study, the seismic performance of two earth retaining walls is compared.

This paper describes a pseudo-static approach developed for geosynthetic-reinforced earth (GRE) retaining walls, calibrated against given levels of wall performance defined by specified values of earthquake-induced displacements. The GRE walls generally show a good performance under severe seismic loading due to the capability of reinforcements to redistribute the deformations induced by the seismic actions within the reinforced zone.