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This paper gives an overview on the application of geosynthetic-reinforced soil structures in Taiwan. Taiwan has an unique topography and geotechnical conditions that rendered a less conservative and more challenging design compared to that of North America, Europe and Japan. The Ji-Ji (Chi-Chi) earthquake of 1999 gave an opportunity to examine the behavior of reinforced soil structures. The performance of several modular-block reinforced soil retaining walls and reinforced slopes at the vicinity of the fault was evaluated. Reinforced structures performed better than unreinforced soil retaining walls. The failure cases were highlighted and the cause of failure was identified. The lack of seismic design consideration could be a major cause of failure. The compound failure mode, the inertia force of the blocks, and the connection stiffness and strength relative to the large dynamic earth pressure, were among major items that would warrant further design consideration.

A study was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of using geosynthetic tensile reinforcements for strengthening two highway test embankments, 8·5 and 14·6 m in height, constructed over weak and highly pervious foundations. Both embankments were reinforced with geogrid mats placed near their base and were constructed in two stages. Field instrumentation was installed to monitor the performance of the embankments during construction. The effectiveness of the tensile reinforcements was evaluated by the finite-element method of analysis. Field-measured settlements at the end of the first stage of construction were used to back-calculate the material parameters representative of their foundation materials. The analytical procedure was validated by comparing the predicted versus measured displacements of the embankments in the second stage of construction, and was subsequently used to predict the performance of the embankments without the geogrid inclusion and with reinforcements different from that used in the actual construction. The effectiveness of using tensile reinforcements in such applications is discussed.