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Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
contradict those reported by Cai and Ugai (2005) as well as
Rahardjo et al. (2007) which were based on a numerical study.
A further study is therefore warranted to confirm the effect of
rainfall intensity. It can however be stated that the rainfall
intensity is a controlling factor for the performance of a GRSW
during rainfall infiltration as reported by Rahardjo et al. (2007)
in their study concerning natural slopes.
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, the results of laboratory investigation into the
effect of rainfall on the performance of a geosynthetic
reinforced soil wall (GRSW) using reduced scale model tests
are presented. The model GRSWs were subjected to cycles of
wetting and drying process with different rainfall intensties but
with the same total rainfall. The results show that the cycles of
wetting and drying associated with a heavy rainfall may induce
additional wall displacement and reinforcement strains in
GRSWs, and that such trends have significant implications to
GRSWs with marginal factor of safety in terms of long-term
performance. The effect of rainfall intensity for a given total
rainfall is such that the case with a smaller rainfall intensity but
with a longer duration generally induces larger wall
displacements and reinforcement strains except for the pore
water pressure measured at the back of reinforced zone.
Although a further study is required to confirm the effect of
rainfall intensity, it can be concluded that the rainfall intensity is
a governing factor for the performance of a GRSW during
rainfall infiltration.
5 ACKNOLEDGEMENT
This research is supported by Grant No. 20100008227 from the
Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering
Foundation. The financial support is gratefully acknowledged.
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