Application of High-Resolution Terrestrial Laser Scanning to Monitor the Performance of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls with Precast Concrete Panels

Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls are extensively used in civil infrastructure projects, particularly in areas with tight right-of-way constraints. Traditional geotechnical design of MSE walls includes internal and external stability checks. The long-term performance of the entire MSE wall system is dependent upon proper construction of the system of geotechnical and structural components. Excessive deflection of the concrete facing panels is usually indicative of construction quality control problems, but these have been difficult to easily asses in the field. This paper proposes a methodology using high-resolution terrestrial laser-scanning technology for field measurements of out-of-plane offsets and angular deviations for MSE walls with precast concrete panels. A MSE wall constructed in the state of Indiana is used to illustrate the proposed methodology, where panel-to-panel out-of-plane offset was in the range of $-10.3$ to 10.9 mm for 90% of the observations (range between the 5th and 95th percentile values). In addition, the angular deviations were $\le 1°$ for 90% of the observations. Spot checks comparing laser scan data and manual measurements for out-of-plane offsets were in the 1–2 mm accuracy range.