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Understanding the stress regime that develops in the vicinity of reinforcements in reinforced soil masses may prove crucial to understanding, quantifying, and modeling the behavior of a reinforced soil structures. This paper presents analyses conducted to describe the evolution of stress and strain fields in a reinforced soil unit cell, which occur as shear stresses are induced at the soil-reinforcement interface. The analyses were carried out based on thorough measurements obtained when conducting soil-reinforcement interaction tests using a new large-scale device developed to specifically assess geosynthetic-reinforced soil behavior considering varying reinforcement vertical spacings. These experiments involved testing a geosynthetic-reinforced mass with three reinforcement layers: an actively tensioned layer and two passively tensioned neighboring layers. Shear stresses from the actively tensioned reinforcement were conveyed to the passively tensioned reinforcement layers through the intermediate soil medium. The experimental measurements considered in the analyses presented herein include tensile strains developed in the reinforcement layers and the displacement field of soil particles adjacent to the reinforcement layers. The analyses provided insights into the lateral confining effect of geosynthetic reinforcements on reinforced soils. It was concluded that the change in the lateral earth pressure increases with increasing reinforcement tensile strain and reinforcement vertical spacing, and it decreases with increasing vertical stress. • Soil stresses evolve in the vicinity of reinforcements in reinforced soil masses. • Understanding the evolution of soil stresses between reinforcements provides insights into the lateral confining effect of reinforcements on soils. • The change in the lateral earth pressure increases with increasing reinforcement tensile strain and reinforcement vertical spacing. • The change in lateral earth pressure per unit change in vertical stress decreases with increasing vertical stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and interprets experimental results of soil–reinforcement interaction tests conducted using a new device developed to assess the mechanical interaction among neighboring reinforcements in geosynthetic-reinforced soil masses. Testing involved a soil mass reinforced using three reinforcement layers, one of which was actively tensioned while the two neighboring layers remained passive. The neighboring reinforcement layers received stresses from the tensioned reinforcement through the shear stresses transferred to the intermediate soil medium. In this study, a number of soil–reinforcement interaction tests were conducted with different reinforcement and soil types. Test results indicate that the load conveyed to the neighboring reinforcement increased with increasing tension in the loaded reinforcement layer. The magnitude of load transfer was found to increase with increasing soil–reinforcement interaction. At least for the products used in this study, geogrid reinforcements showed a greater ability to form a composite reinforced soil mass than geotextile reinforcements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]