Abstract: Geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall (GRS RW) with a gravity wall(GW)facing and GRS RW with a full-height rigid (FHR) facing are new retaining wall structures, which are collectively known as GRS RW-RWF (rigid wall facing). The differences of GRS RW-RWF with normal GRS RW with a thin concrete slab lie in that the rigid wall facing has larger thickness and higher rigidity, which can restrain the deformation of backfill soil and bear soil pressure. At present, the working behaviour and design method of GRS RW-RWF are not covered in specifications and systematic in-depth researches are in lack. In this paper, we take embankment retaining wall which is commonly employed in roadbed engineering of railway and highway as a research object, and analyzed the working behaviour of GRS RW-RWF is analyzed from aspects including the stress and strain of reinforced material and filling soil as well as the deformation of rigid retaining wall in the presence of two different construction sequences (construction sequence A: pouring rigid retaining wall before filling geosynthetic-reinforced soil, and construction sequence B: filling geosynthetic-reinforced soil before pouring rigid retaining wall). Results show that the lateral deformation of GRS RW-RWF is linearly distributed along the height of retaining wall, and the maximum value of lateral deformation occurs on the top of the rigid retaining wall. Construction sequence B is superior to construction sequence A because it better develops the function of reinforced material, reduces the soil pressure acting on rigid retaining wall and controls the deformation of rigid retaining wall. Moreover, the method of determining the reinforcement tension in GRS RW-RWF is presented, and the two-part wedge method recommended by Japanese Code of Design and Construction for RRR-B Construction System can be used to calculate soil pressure acting on rigid retaining wall.

Key words: reinforced soil, rigid wall facing, reinforcement tension, soil pressure, two-part wedge method