Deformation analysis of reinforced soil retaining walls—simplistic versus sophisticated finite element analyses

Over the last two decades, different kinds of modular block have been increasingly used in the geogrid-reinforced soil retaining walls. The simulation of such wall behavior, which involves interactions between different structural components and backfill soils, requires a rigorous numerical procedure. Finite element is usually a preferred method, but this procedure, especially the soil constitutive models, is of different degrees of sophistication. It is always an issue of how simple or sophisticated should an analysis be conducted in replicating the actual behavior. In this article, a full-scale test wall was used to validate simplistic and sophisticated finite element analyses. Different types of finite element and material models were used in the two kinds of analysis to differentiate the level of simplicity or sophistication. The results obtained from stress-deformation analyses are presented and compared. It is shown that for wall construction that involves static loading conditions, simplistic nonlinear elastic and sophisticated elastoplastic analyses produced close and acceptable results.