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• Geotechnical Stability of gabion walls

The geotechnical stability of the Frontface and the Backface gabion retaining walls under different soil and loading conditions is compared based on the factor of safety achieved using different Eurocode 7 design approaches. The wall is treated as a single gravity entity and a parametric study is performed by varying its breadth-to-height ratio, degree of inclination, surcharge, and soil parameters, which include unit weight and internal friction angle. Factors that significantly influence the geotechnical stability at the Ultimate Limit State (GEO) were found to be the internal friction angle of the backfill and the breadth-to-height ratio of the wall. The eccentricity of the Frontface gabion wall renders itmore effective, in terms of the factor of safety achieved with respect to the number of gabion baskets used. At small breadth-to-height ratio, the failure criterion is overturning and at large values of this ratio,the structure is more prone to sliding failure. The choice of a sufficiently conservative design approach therefore depends on the design loads and design material properties involved