Numerical Investigation of Gravity and Reinforced Soil Wall Performance under Blast Loading

In this paper، dynamic response of the two most common retaining walls in geotechnical engineering practices (conventional gravity retaining walls and geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) walls) to blast loading are investigated and compared using FLAC 2D. After large number of numerical simulations، it was concluded that performance of the GRS walls is better than conventional gravity retaining walls. Also it is observed that deformation modes of these two types of walls are different. In all analysis، dominant mode of lateral deformation for the gravity types of walls (for both 5 and 10 m) was overturning mode combination with sliding at base of wall، whereas for GRS walls in addition to sliding at base، deformation modes are start from bulging at low blast intensity loading and tends to overturning mode with increasing blast loading intensity. Therefore location of the maximum lateral displacement of gravity walls is occurred at wall crown in all the analysis، whereas in GRS walls، location of the maximum lateral displacement start from middle of the wall height in bulging mode and shift to the surface of the wall with increasing blast loading because of overturning mode domination. Also، it is concluded that soil damping and distance from blast loading adversely affected blast induced deformation of the walls.