Location
Arlington, Virginia
Date
15 Aug 2008, 11:00am - 12:30pm
Abstract
A “Reinforced Soil Retaining Wall” (RSR) wall of 10.5m height collapsed about 5 years after construction. HDPE geogrids were used as reinforcement. The facia panels suffered outward movements during construction and the deformations continued to increase. A 16m long stretch of the RSR wall failed and the failure wedge cut through four layers of reinforcement. The paper analyses the role of different factors in causing the failure. Tension tests were carried out on the geogrids exhumed from the failed zone. A significant loss in the strength of these grids was found which may be attributed to the high ambient temperatures in the area where the RSR wall is located. The influence of other factors in causing the failure are also brought out and discussed.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
6th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2008 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Rao, P. Jagannatha, "Practical Lessons from Failure of a Reinforced Soil Retaining Wall on a Major Highway" (2008). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 21.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/6icchge/session05/21
Practical Lessons from Failure of a Reinforced Soil Retaining Wall on a Major Highway
Arlington, Virginia
A “Reinforced Soil Retaining Wall” (RSR) wall of 10.5m height collapsed about 5 years after construction. HDPE geogrids were used as reinforcement. The facia panels suffered outward movements during construction and the deformations continued to increase. A 16m long stretch of the RSR wall failed and the failure wedge cut through four layers of reinforcement. The paper analyses the role of different factors in causing the failure. Tension tests were carried out on the geogrids exhumed from the failed zone. A significant loss in the strength of these grids was found which may be attributed to the high ambient temperatures in the area where the RSR wall is located. The influence of other factors in causing the failure are also brought out and discussed.
