1. Introduction
Use of geosynthetic materials for reinforcing purposes allows us to replace the massive concrete retaining walls
with reinforced earth structures that have advantages in realisation of the structure on soft soils. Reinforced earth
structures also withstand the differential settlement very well.
Design of these structures includes verification of global and internal stability. Global stability check is based on
the gravity walls theory, with reinforced volume of the soil considered as a rigid block. Several methods of internal
stability verification, which were calibrated by the monitoring of real structures, were developed. Beside the static
equilibrium, these methods consider the influence of the reinforcement stiffness on overall structure stiffness, axial
forces and strains of the reinforcement.
Despite the improvements of these methods, outputs of the monitoring mention the differences between assumed
and measured strains and axial forces. Divergences are caused by the limitations of the analytical design methods,
which verify only static equilibrium without considering deformations.