摘要

The accuracy of the default Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) simplified model for estimation of facing tensile forces for soil nail walls under in-service conditions was evaluated using a large quantity of measured long-term and short-term facing tensile force data collected from the literature. The estimation accuracy was quantified by the mean and coefficient of variation (COV) of the bias where bias is defined as the ratio of measured to calculated facing tensile force. Based on the available data, the default FHWA simplified model equation was found to overestimate long-and short-term facing tensile forces by about 15% and 23% on average, respectively. The corresponding spreads in estimation accuracy expressed as the bias COV were about 43% and 67%. Undesirable correlations between bias values and calculated facing tensile forces using the default FHWA simplified model equation were detected. A modified FHWA simplified model was proposed to improve the on average accuracy, reduce the spread in estimation accuracy, and remove the hidden correlations noted above. In addition, the modified equation has fewer empirical coefficients than the current formulation (i.e., four versus five). The facing tensile force equations developed in this study are a contribution to the design of facing of soil nail walls within the current FHWA soil nail wall design framework.