OETOMO J.J.1, VINCENS E.2, DEDECKER F.3, MOREL J.-C.4

1 PhD Student, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes, james.oetomo@ec-lyon.fr

2 Dr, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes, eric.vincens@ec-lyon.fr

3 Dr, ITASCA SAS, f.dedecker@itasca.fr

4 Dr, Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes, jean-claude.morel@entpe.fr

The use of dry stone retaining walls (DSRWs) for slope reinforcement was progressively abandoned in the early 20th century as reinforced concrete was gaining popularity. Recently, researches have tried to recover the scientific knowledge that had been lost during the past century as DSRWs have been capable to answer most of the issues of sustainable development.

In this work, we focus on studying the rigid planar failure of DSRWs due to an excessive pressure coming from a backfill. The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is used for the modelling of the entire system.

The first objective is to find the critical height of backfill and the failure mode that were previously obtained throughout different experiments (scale 1) involving various types of block material. The second objective is to better analyse the properties of the wall-backfill interface in order to determine its internal friction angle which is required in simplified approaches of the problem.

Keywords: dry-stone, retaining wall, DEM, interface, block, masonry structure, granular backfill