“…In many studies, an airbag was used to apply normal stresses to the reinforced soil mass (e.g., Palmeira 2004;Teixeira, Bueno, and Zornberg 2007;Nayeri and Fakharian 2009;Ezzein and Bathurst 2014;Weldu et al 2016). To protect the airbag from damage by aggregates, plates (e.g., steel plates or wooden plates) are placed under the airbag (e.g., Lajevardi, Dias, and Racinais 2013;Lawson et al 2013). In some cases, however, a hydraulic jack was used to apply the normal stress through a rigid plate (Abdelrahman, Ashmawy, and Abdelmoniem 2008;Abdi and Arjomand 2011).…”