Practice and Research of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Walls in Australia - Reinforced Soil Engineering: Advances in Research and Practice - page 268

Figure 14 Predicted horizontal displacement contours.

the numerical scheme of FLAC enables the analysis to proceed to collapse
without “ill-conditioning.” Collapse was detected when the friction angle of the
foundation soil was reduced to 21 . Noting that “worst-scenario” assumptions

were made in the analysis, and that the predicted behavior at working conditions
was more severe than that observed, one can conclude that the GRS wall has an
adequate safety margin.

8

5.3 M2 Motorway

The M2 motorway is a 20-km road corridor that connects the northwestern
suburbs of Sydney to 10 km northwest of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The project
is based on the design and construct contract system and was completed in May
1997. This road corridor traverses forested bushland by means of bridges and
RSW embankments. All the wall structures, including abutment walls that
support bridge decks, are GRS walls. The facing was constructed from articulated
precast concrete panels, with a standard area of about 3.1m 2

per panel.