Wall System Combining Sheet Piling and Geogrid Reinforcements

The new system combines sheet piling and geogrid reinforcements, offering considerable benefits to slope stabilization, marine and levee repair projects.

The sheet piling only need to be placed in a two foot deep trench. The system is also an excellent choice when piping and global stability issues are present because the sheet piling can be driven to a specified depth and then attached to the reinforcement system.

As communities continue to expand, land once considered unusable because of steep grades is now being improved with the use of retaining wall systems. The wall system is already having a dramatic effect on how retaining walls are designed and installed.

Retaining walls are currently comprised of two components: a fascia system and a soil reinforcement system. Fascia systems are typically masonry block or pre-cast concrete panel systems. Soil reinforcements are either a geogrid or geotextile material. Using a variety of methods, fascia systems are connected to the soil reinforcement. The purpose of the geogrid is to diffuse the soil load that would otherwise act on the fascia by causing the soil to “stack vertically” as opposed to stacking at its angle of repose. Once the retaining wall is built, there is little soil load against the fascia.

The wall system also provides significant benefits to engineers designing tied back sheet piling walls. With wall system, walls once reserved for steel, composite or heavy-gauge vinyl sheet piling can now be built with shorter sections of lightweight vinyl sheet piling. In addition, The wall system has no metal components, which is a huge plus in saltwater applications.

The versatility of the system lends itself particularly well to flood control and levee structures. The Modular Levee System is composed of two parallel sheet piling walls supported by layers of geogrid in the core. The geogrid mitigates the soil loading in the sheet piling and in many cases will allow the use of native soil in the core. The Modular Levee System provides several key benefits:

1. The footprint of the levee is dramatically reduced, solving many environmental and easement concerns.
2. Lighter and shorter sheet piling sections reduce the cost of getting sheet piling material to remote sites; Lighter and shorter sheet piling sections don’t require the use of heavy machinery on an existing levee; Lighter and shorter sheet piling sections are less expensive that optional materials.
3. The geogrid, in many cases, will allow the use of native fill in the core, saving the expense of trucking in non-native fill.
4. The System can be installed in less time than conventional designs.

This article comes from land-fill-cqa edit released