Effect of infiltration on the performance of an unsaturated geotextile-reinforced soil wall

The climatic effects on infiltration and stability of geotextile reinforced walls.

“…1. Evaluate, through numerical simulations, the infiltration process into a reinforced soil wall prototype in regions that were not monitored during the laboratory experiment conducted by Portelinha and Zornberg (2017); 2. Comprehend the overall stability of a nonwoven geotextile reinforced soil wall when subjected to 2 years of climatic changes;…”

“…Despite the fact that nonwoven geotextile is an extensible material, recent research studies have shown that, its use in a reinforcement and drainage role provided good performance during the soil structure life time ZORNBERG, 1995;PORTELINHA et al, 2013PORTELINHA et al, , 2014ZORNBERG, 2017). Additionally, the nonwoven geotextile was found to improve overall structural stability (IRYO; ROWE, 2005a;THUO et al, 2015THUO et al, , 2016.…”

“…Some researchers have reported that nonwoven geotextile may act as a water barrier which is resulting of capillary effects due to water retention characteristics of both the soil and nonwoven geotextile MORRIS, 2000;ROWE, 2004;ZORNBERG et al, 2010;THUO et al, 2015THUO et al, , 2016ZORNBERG, 2017;LIMA et al, 2018). Also, loss of soil suction in reinforced soil structures when subjected to infiltration has also been identified as a concern due to its effect on wall performance (IRYO; ROWE, 2005a;PORTELINHA et al, 2013;ESMAILI et al, 2014;ESMAILI, 2015;BALAKRISHNAN;VISWANADHAM, 2016;VAHEDIFARD et al, 2016;ZORNBERG, 2017;YANG et al, 2018). However, experimental studies (BUENO et al, 2005;BENJAMIM et al, 2007;PORTELINHA et al, 2013PORTELINHA et al, , 2014ZORNBERG, 2017) published to date have reported that although the wetting advancement into the reinforced soil structure tended to increase reinforcement strain and reduce matric suction, the overall performance of the reinforced soil using nonwoven geotextiles has been satisfactory.…”

“…Capillary barriers have been reported to be beneficial in a number of different applications, such as landfill covers (ANDERSON, 1997;MELCHIOR, 1997;STORMONT, 1997;LI et al, 2013;ZHAN et al, 2014;NG et al, 2015;RAHARDJO et al, 2016;LIMA et al, 2018), water storage in agriculture (ITYEL et al, 2011(ITYEL et al, , 2012EL-NESR et al, 2014) and water migration in pavements HOLTZ, 2001;STORMONT et al, 2001). Conversely, capillary barriers have also been reported as having a negative impact on the performance of structures such as retaining wall reinforced using nonwoven geotextiles due to water accumulation over the interface ROWE, 2004ROWE, , 2005aROWE, , 2005bZORNBERG et al, 2010;THUO et al, 2015;ZORNBERG, 2017;YANG et al, 2018).…”

“…A number of studies MORRIS, 2000;ROWE, 2003ROWE, , 2004ROWE, , 2005aROWE, , 2005bGARCIA et al, 2007;ZORNBERG et al, 2010;BAHADOR et al, 2014;ZORNBERG, 2017) have shown that the nonwoven geotextile drainage function is considerably diminished under unsaturated conditions and the capillary barrier effect may occur, facilitating a loss in matric suction. As a result, low stiffness reinforced soils (e.g.…”