LRFD Calibration of Steel Reinforced Soil Walls

The paper reports results of load and resistance factor design (LRFD) reliability-based calibration for resistance factors for pullout and yield limit states of steel grid and ribbed strip reinforced soil walls under self-weight loading plus uniform surcharge. A large number of measurements from instrumented walls and pullout tests were used to develop calibration statistics. In order to ensure sensible values for the magnitude of resistance factors (i.e. values ≤ 1) adjustments to the calculation of reinforcement loads in ribbed steel strip walls and new revised charts for the estimation of the pullout resistance are proposed. The current load factor of 1.35 recommended by AASHTO is used and resistance factors are computed to satisfy a consistent probability of failure of 1% for all three limit states considered.