Design of retaining walls: System uncertainty & fuzzy safety measures

The interrelationship between system/model uncertainty and the use of factors of safety in the various design procedures of embedded retaining walls are examined. Data from field trials, laboratory models and from finite element models suggest that actual lateral stresses behind and in front of embedded retaining walls do not coincide with those predicted by the idealized stress distribution based on classical theory. To address this mismatch, an interpretation model was developed based on the concept of fuzzy sets. The fuzzy set follows a triangular distribution and is used to illustrate the use of the proposed model through a comparison with measured lateral pressures and the results of finite element analyses.