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In this paper, a detailed numerical study is conducted to evaluate the lateral earth pressure acting on geosynthetic-reinforced retaining walls with an anisotropic granular backfill subjected to strip footing loadings. To this end, the well-established lower bound theory of limit analysis coupled with the robust second order cone programming (SOCP) and the finite element discretization method is exploited and implemented in the stability analysis of reinforced retaining structures. For the finite element limit analysis, a number of constraints associated with the lower-bound axioms are satisfied, including element equilibrium, discontinuity equilibrium, boundary conditions and the yield criterion enforcement. By adopting second-order cone programming (SOCP) optimization, the nonlinear Mohr-coulomb failure criterion is simulated using three nodal auxiliary variables defined as functions of nodal stresses generated at …