Container boundary effects in shaking table tests on reinforced soil wall models

This paper studies the seismic response of reinforced soil retaining walls through shaking table tests. The effect of the container boundary on the behaviour of model retaining walls subjected to dynamic base excitation is examined. Two types of containers, a rigid container made of a perspex sheet and a flexible laminar container were used in the tests. Model tests on wrap-faced and rigid-faced reinforced soil walls and unreinforced rigid-faced walls are discussed in detail, including their construction, instrumentation and results of dynamic tests on a shaking table. Horizontal face displacements and accelerations are analyzed to examine the influence of the container boundary on the performance of the walls. From the results, it is observed that the flexible boundary laminar container allows more displacement and larger accelerations compared to the rigid perspex container. Since the soil in a rigid wall container cannot deform as it would in the field and a strain dissimilarity results between the model and the prototype, the response of model walls tested in the flexible container is believed to be more reliable than that of walls tested in the rigid container.