Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Walls and Slopes: Best Practices in Design and Construction and Reality: Why They Differ

摘要

The understanding of and experience with geosynthetic-reinforced walls and slopes has steadily grown for several decades. Design and construction guidance has gradually and continuously evolved and is now fully mature. These technical advancements have been accompanied by an expanding list of successfully completed projects and a diverse range of applications. They have also resulted in widespread acceptance of reinforced soil technology within the United States and elsewhere. The success story and benefits behind the mainstream acceptance of this innovation has resulted in savings of time and cost as well as increased service life of completed reinforced soil structures. These advantages are well documented and been proven on hundreds of projects. In spite of the success outlined above many engineers, owners, designers and contractors remain skeptics of geosynthetic wall and slope applications on projects of significance. In addition the percentages of poorly performing installations, both during and post construction are both disappointing and alarming. This paper examines this paradox and suggests steps to optimize technology acceptance, improve appropriate application and use and minimize poor performance. The paper outlines best practice, reality of the state of practice and suggests tactics to advance the state of practice for each of following project development phases: selection, design, construction, qc/qa during construction and long-term performance.