ABSTRACT
Segmental Walls (SWs) are earth retaining structures with an easy and fast construction method by using pre-fabricated modular blocks. However, such a wall face is usually planar. In this study, we designed curved SWs with a special block called Porcupine. A series of small-scale (1:10) model tests were conducted in the centrifuge facility at Columbia University, showing that a concave profile can significantly improve the overall performance of the gravity segmental walls (GSWs). When reinforcement is added, to increase structure’s load capacity, the system’s performance is dominated by the reinforcement stiffness and the wall facing geometry has no significant influence. Another highlight of this study is the use of low-cost 3D-printing in model preparation. To sum up, this study finds an easy, practical solution to improve the performance of GSWs by aligning the wall facing blocks in a curved geometry, also demonstrating how to utilize 3D printing in geotechnical model testing.
