Design of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Wall with Rigid Facia Using Nailing

Facia is an important component of geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) system provided to control the erosion of backfilled material, to prevent the damage of reinforced material, and to give the aesthetically pleasing appearance. The increased use of marginal fills in the construction of a GRS wall created certain issues of differential settlement between the facia system and reinforced fill. This differential settlement caused additional forces at the connection joint of facia and reinforcement and sometimes resulted in shear breakage of reinforcement and the collapse of the structure. Hence, the aim of the current research is to develop a design and construction sequence of a new kind of facia system for marginal fills that eliminate the issues related to the differential settlement and prevent the functionality of the structure. Soil nails are used in the proposed facia system to connect the full height panel facia to wrap-around GRS wall. The design of GRS wall and soil nail is done according to the provisions given by design codes, and the steps for the combined design is discussed. An attempt was made to give the mathematical formulation of the additional pull-out force generated inside the soil nails due to the differential settlement. It is proposed to add this additional force in the design checks of soil nails for the combined system. The construction sequence of the proposed system is suggested by considering the easiness and stability at each stage of construction.