Effect of the Foundation Quality on a Geotextile-Reinforced, Brick-Faced Soil Retaining Wall

This paper describes a study carried out on geotextile-reinforced, brick-faced retaining walls built with different foundation conditions and reinforcement geometry in order to examine the effect of foundation quality. A total of five different foundations were tested in order to investigate if either a good foundation or a large and expensive wall-face footing might be necessary to ensure good performance of rigid-faced walls with short reinforcement layers. The results show that the foundation quality is indeed a very important factor in determining the behaviour of the walls. However, walls built on compressible foundations, with footings three times the width of the wall, show a behaviour similar to walls built on strong foundations (simulated in this study by the base of a steel test tank).