Reduction in Lateral Forces in Retaining Walls by Controlled Yielding (Trl 242)

It has been found that the controlled development of strain fields in reinforced soil backfill during construction permits the soil and reinforcement strengths to be fully utilised and produces a significant reduction in post-construction wall movements.

This report covers the result of a study carried out to investigate the relationship between strain and mobilised strength in both unreinforced and reinforced soil structures.

It reviews the development of a wall yielding technique in which the movements of the internal boundaries of retaining structures are controlled to reduce the lateral forces acting on them.

The yielding wall technique offers an economic and convenient solution for reducing the lateral forces on retaining structures.

The report also describes the use of finite element analysis to simulate the effect of yielding in ameliorating the horizontal stresses on walls.