ABSTRACT
Geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) structure has been received much attention recently due to its advantages of less over-excavation, ease of construction, cost-effective and excellent performance in practice. The backfill gradation may influence the bearing capacity of GRS mass. This paper conducts a series of model tests under plane strain condition using transparent soil to investigate the effect of backfill gradation on the bearing capacity of GRS mass. The particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique was adopted to monitor the deformation field change in the backfills during testing. The results showed that the maximum aggregate size of backfill affected the bearing capacity of the GRS mass, while the test with well-graded aggregates yielded larger bearing capacity than that with poor-graded aggregates although both backfill had the same maximum aggregate size. Moreover, the well-graded aggregates reduced the deformation of GRS mass.
