Probabilistic analysis and design of reinforced soil walls and modelling of soil-reinforcement interaction using transparent granular soil

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Every Canadian is a stakeholder in the safe and cost-effective design of civil engineering infrastructure. Included in this infrastructure are reinforced soil retaining wall structures which are ubiquitous on the Canadian landscape due to their cost-effectiveness compared to traditional retaining wall technologies. However, current design methods are not suited for modern reliability-based design consistent with the approach that has been used by structural engineers to design bridge superstructures and buildings for more than three decades. The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) stated in a recent call for research proposals for "Geotechnical-based Reliability Design" that: "If geotechnical design codes were to take advantage of reliability-based concepts, an overall savings in foundation construction and design costs of roughly $10 million per year could easily be achieved [in Ontario]." Modern reinforced soil retaining wall structures fall within the foundation category. The long-term impact of the proposed research will be to realize the benefit of reliability-based design concepts applied to this class of structure for all Canadians.