Development of equivalent surcharge loads for the design of soil nailed segment of MSE/soil nail hybrid retaining walls based on results from full-scale wall instrumentation and finite element analysis

MSE/Soil Nail hybrid retaining walls have been used in cut/fill retaining systems recently. In this type of wall a MSE wall is constructed above an existing soil nail wall. Therefore, the soil nail wall portion of the hybrid wall system has much heavier surcharge than the normal one. The dissertation demonstrates the results of instrumentation and monitoring a MSE/Soil Nail hybrid retaining wall system. The innovative 2D finite element models were used to simulate the behavior of the hybrid retaining wall system, considering the soil nail ultimate pullout capacity and the effects of the construction phase. In order to evaluate the global FOS of the soil nail wall portion, the equivalent loads considering the vertical loads and horizontal loads of the MSE wall portion are presented by the results of the finite element analysis. The vertical load factor is 1.2 times of the self weight of the MSE wall. Meanwhile the horizontal load factors are in function of the soil nail pullout capacities. The instrumentation data and numerical analysis results are discussed below.