Modeling Reinforcement-Soil Interactions under Oblique or Transverse Forces-A Review

The pullout resistance of the reinforcement is an important parameter in the design of reinforced earth structures. The existing design procedures consider the pullout resistance due to only axial pull. However, the kinematics of failure clearly establishes that the reinforcement is displaced obliquely. In this paper, a review on the physical modeling of sheet reinforcement subjected to an oblique force applied at one end of the reinforcement is presented. The review ranges from simple physical models that consider linear normal stress-deformation of the fill material and rigid plastic behavior of shear stress-displacement at soil-reinforcement interface to more sophisticated models that consider nonlinear behavior for both normal stress-deformation of the fill and shear stress-displacement of soil-reinforcement interface. The effects of various parameters on the reinforcement-soil interaction are also highlighted. Review shows that the pullout resistance of the reinforcement is higher when subjected to the oblique force compared to that for an axial pullout