Earthquake Performance of Full-Scale Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls

A 20' (6.1 m) tall, 15' (4.6 m) wide geogrid-reinforced modular block type Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) wall was constructed and instrumented within a rigid container, the Large Soil Confinement Box (LSCB), attached to the Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST) of the UCSD Englekirk Structural Engineering Center (ESEC). The wall was subjected to a series of sinusoidal base excitation motions of varying frequency and acceleration amplitude, scaled earthquake records from Northridge (1994), Kobe (1995), and Maule (2010), and interspersed low amplitude random motion controls. An array of accelerometers, string potentiometers, strain gages, and total pressure cells monitored the response of the wall and backfill.