Practice and Research of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Walls in Australia - Reinforced Soil Engineering: Advances in Research and Practice - page 267

Figure 13 Predicted vertical displacement contours.

Minimum Young's moduli of 5MPa for fill and 1MPa for foundation soil were
also coded in to prevent numerical problems when the state of a soil element soil
changed from an elastic to a plastic. The subsurface conditions adopted in the
analysis corresponded to that of a “worst scenario”, and the soil parameters
adopted were considered to be conservative. The predicted vertical and
horizontal displacements are presented in Figs. 13 and 14 , respectively. The
predicted displacements were significantly higher than the monitored value.
The maximum predicted settlement at foundation level was 150mm, but the
maximum measured settlement was about 70 mm. The maximum horizontal
deflection at tier 3 was 150 mm, but the measured value was 75 to 85mm. This is
somewhat expected, partly because of “worst-scenario” assumptions made and
partly due to the nature of a Duncan-Chang model. More importantly, the
improved analysis was able to give the “unusual” settlement profile, and both
settlement and horizontal displacements were predicted to be significant.
The analysis was continued by progressively reducing the strength
parameters until a collapse was detected. As explained in Appendix A,