Chapters authored
Behavior of Reinforced Soil Wall Built with Fabrics
This chapter presents an example of use of fabrics in geotechnical engineering construction. Some aspects related to design, construction, and the performance of a 4.2-m-high-reinforced soil wall, located in Brazil, is presented. In this wall, geogrid (fabric reinforcement) was used as reinforcement, and the backfill was a fine-grained residual tropical soil. The wall was monitored during its construction (2 months); load in the reinforcements, vertical and horizontal displacements of the reinforced soil mass, and efforts on block-face were measured. The monitoring of the wall was done by means of load cells for the reinforcements and block-face, and also includes settlement plates, total pressure cells, inclinometers, and topographical marks. The results provided by the instruments showed good performance of the wall. Measurements and calculated tension in the reinforcements were compared, and good prediction capability of the used analytical method was demonstrated. The measured tensile load in the reinforcements was lower than the admissible load of the geogrids used in the wall. Measurements also indicate that the block-face was able to support part of the load that would be carried by the reinforcements.
Part of the book: Engineered Fabrics