Bearing Capacity of Reinforced Soil Slopes – Analytical and Numerical Solutions

The aim of this paper is to show the advantage of using rigid-plastic theoretical solutions of bearing capacity problem in determining failure loads of reinforced soil slopes. At first basic assumptions of r.s. rigid-plastic theoretical model are examined and two types of solutions for the slope bearing capacity problem are presented – one for weightless soil and the other for soil with weight. These two solutions are compared with some experimental failure test results. Discussion is made for a range of slope angles and amounts of reinforcement. The conclusion of the paper is that for a few meters high steep slopes reinforced with relatively strong material failure loads are not much affected by a soil weight and the analytical solution of slope bearing capacity gives practically valuable approximation of experimental results. This makes the analytical solution, having a simple form, attractive for the designers, but it needs further verification in wider range of parameters.