Experimental Study on Deformation of Multistage Retaining Wall

In recent years, with the rapid development of highways, embankment landslides caused by the instability of retaining walls has become increasingly common. In this paper, the ShiMan Highway had been taken as the subject investigated and the deformation experimentation of a retaining wall was conducted in the fill section as deep as 76 meters, (K32 +570 ∼ K32 +690), in order to explore the stability and deformation of multi-level retaining walls. Many displacement observation points were set up in different locations on multi-level retaining walls and regular observations were carried out for 8 months. The experimental results show that: the lateral deformation and settlement of multi-level retaining walls goes through a period of rapid growth and a moderate growth phase, and gradually stabilizes after a period of 8 months; there are interactions between the single body of multi-level retaining walls; the platform between levels of a wall can play a role in unloading; the curves of displacement and subsidence of multi-level retaining walls are non-linear, for which a logarithmic function can be used to fit the curve of deformation trend better. © 2010 ASCE.