Pullout of Inclined sheet Reinforcement in Reinforced Earth Wall

The conventional practice of construction of reinforced soil walls involves aligning metallic/polymeric reinforcement horizontally. Use of inclined reinforcement is not adopted or limited due to difficulties in construction. The present work analyses RE wall with sheet reinforcement inclined downward to the horizontal at an inclination ranging from 0 to 10° and predicts the factor of safety against pullout of inclined reinforcement. Further, its application to the
stability of reinforced earth (RE) wall is investigated by quantifying the improvement of factor of safety against the factor of safety for conventional wall with horizontal reinforcement. The variations of factor of safety with length of reinforcement, angle of shearing resistance of backfill, number of reinforcement layers, interface friction angle, intensity of surcharge and different failure mechanisms are studied. Reinforced soil walls with reinforcement oriented marginally downward offer improved resistance against pullout compared with walls with horizontal reinforcement.