Four Pioneering Projects over the Last Twenty Years Using Innovative Georeinforcement Solutions

Four selected projects from the last twenty years are briefly presented in chronological order. They all include pioneering elements in terms of engineering solutions, development and application of innovative geosynthetic reinforcement. They are the following: (1) Bridging a sinkhole on the German National Highway B180 near Eisleben, Germany in 1993. Geogrids from aramid (AR) with 1200 kN/m were developed, produced and installed for the first time worldwide. Ten years later the sinkhole reactivated. The solution performed even better than expected and actually saved human life. (2) Intermediate capping system of a landfill near Stuttgart, Germany in 1998 to allow the overbuilding of the old landfill so as to increase capacity. Differential settlements had to be equalized and an old gas dome to be overbridged. Geogrids from polyvinylalcohol (PVA) with 900 kN/m were developed and used to reinforce the soils of the intermediate layer system. (3) Upgrade of the intercity rail link Berlin-Hamburg in Germany at Büchen for train velocities of up to 260 km/h in 2003. The subsoil was of insufficient dynamic stability. The solution comprised a flat geogrid-reinforced embankment from cemented sand on top of mixed-in-place columns. Two layers of PVA-geogrids with 400 kN/m were applied. This allowed building the flattest railroad embankment over piles known to exist. (4) Heavy stockyard of the TKCSA steel plant, Sepetiba, Brazil in 2006-2008. It included stock beds and runways and had to be constructed on soft saturated clays. To ensure both the ultimate and serviceability limit states a wide range of PVA-geogrids and -woven geotextiles with up to 1600 kN/m were installed. It is the biggest project worldwide using PVA-geosynthetic reinforcement (887,000 m²) and possibly the biggest one in terms of total installed geosynthetic strengths.