Abstract: Reinforced soil retaining walls are increasingly favored by designers in civil engineering because of its unique landscape performance and good seismic-resistance performance. As an integral part of the reinforced soil retaining walls, facing has a significant influence on its bearing capacity. In view of the fact that the existing design codes cannot consider the effect of facing form on the mechanical deformation characteristics of the structure itself, centrifuge model tests were carried out on walls with full-height panel facing and blocked facing. The following results are obtained: the displacement of the full-height panel facing is less than that of the blocked facing during the loading period. Since the larger displacement for the model wall with blocked facing, its horizontal earth pressure is smaller; stress concentration occurs at the bottom of the facing of the reinforced soil retaining wall. It is found that the soil-reinforcement friction coefficient for the reinforced soil retaining wall with blocked facing is larger than that in the case of full-height panel facing, while both of them are less than the recommended values from the design codes. The model walls are conservative due to the larger reinforcement length and the use of the anchor connector.

Key words: reinforced soil retaining wall, facing, centrifuge model test, displacement, friction coefficient