................................................................................................................................ III LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... VIII LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... IX INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil ............................................................................................ 1 Motivation ........................................................................................................................... 2 Thesis Overview ................................................................................................................. 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 3 Cam-Clay Model ................................................................................................................ 3 Subloading tij Model ........................................................................................................ 11 Finite Element Method .................................................................................................... 27 Unsaturated Soil Mechanics............................................................................................ 28 PERFORMANCE TEST .................................................................................................... 34 Test Configuration ........................................................................................................... 35 Backfill .............................................................................................................................. 36 Geosynthetic Reinforcement ........................................................................................... 38 CMU Blocks ...................................................................................................................... 39 GRS Column Load Test Configuration ......................................................................... 39 Instrumentation................................................................................................................ 40