Comparable Study on Four Soil Retaining Walls(2/3)

The soil retaining wall is one of the important structures in civil engineering, and many studies regarding the topic have been reported. However, each study was focused on a specific type of retaining wall, and not a comprehensive study investigating and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of different retaining walls, with the same research methodology, procedure, and equipment, has even been reported. Therefore, the proposed study is the first comprehensive research aiming to investigate four retaining walls altogether, namely geocell walls, gabion walls, modular-block walls, and crib-block walls. With this study, we can address the interesting and critical questions: 1) which is most/least stable on earthquake condition; and 2) which has most/least bearing capacity when subject to static loading on the backfill. The same research methodology will be used to investigate the characteristics of each wall for a more meaningful comparison, which mainly consists of centrifuge tests and numerical studies. Last but not least, the proposed study will utilize 3D printing in this geotechnical research, which we have accumulated some good experience from past projects.