A comparison of analytical approaches for the assessment of seismic displacements of geosynthetically reinforced geostructures

Aim of the current study is to assess the dynamic response of reinforced soil structures and the potential of the geosynthetics to prevent the seismic induced instabilities taking advantage of their reinforcing effect. For this purpose, representative models of reinforced soil slopes are developed based on a modified procedure of the well – known Newmark’s model. The dynamic response of the sliding soil mass and the development of the seismic accumulated slippage are taken into account simultaneously, while reinforcement is introduced by a spring element which models its stiffness. Parametric finite element analyses were performed and the impact of the flexibility of the sliding system, the mechanical properties of soil and geosynthetic material, and the frequency content of the excitation were investigated. Permanent displacements are shown to decrease with the increase of the stiffness of the reinforcement, while the decoupling approximation appears to be conservative for the majority of the examined cases.