Finite Element Analysis of Multi-tiered Reinforced Soil Walls of Gotvand Dam Powerhouse under Earthquake Loading

Multi-tiered reinforced soil walls are now an innovation technology for the solution of earth retaining wall problems. This paper is focused on the numerical modeling of a reinforced soil wall with steel strip soil reinforcement taken from a series of structures constructed at the powerhouse of Gotvand dam located in south of Iran. In this paper details of the numerical simulation and specifications of the materials that are used in a 31 m high reinforced soil wall that was built in 5-tiered configuration and located above the powerhouse of Gotvand dam are described. This paper presents the wall responses to a typical seismic loading. The lessons learned here have applications to other types of multi-tiered reinforced soil walls and are of value to designers who wish to: explore the mechanical behavior of these systems under static and earthquake loading and to generate data to fill the gaps in performance data from the limited number of monitored structures reported in the literature