Considering that the granular backfill soil used at the site commonly
contains a serious amount of silt, Ling et al. (2012) performed
similar tests using an SM-SC sand with 43.3% fines content. GRS
walls with this backfill performed better than the previously tested
walls. Increasing the vertical reinforcement spacing to 0.8 m and
removal of interlocking between facing blocks did not lead to failure.
The good performance was attributed to apparent cohesion, which
depends on moisture content, and therefore, is advised to be excluded
from design. Lateral earth pressure decreased to nearly
negligible values at the end of shaking, indicating that the reinforcement
was unnecessary under static conditions. However,
tensile forces in reinforcement were mobilized during shaking