Geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) technology has been used worldwide since the 1970s. An extension to its development is the application as a bridge abutment, which was initially developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in the United States, called the GRS—integrated bridge system (GRS-IBS). Now, there are several variations of this technology, which includes the GRS Integral Bridge (GRS-IB) developed in Japan in the 2000s. In this study, the GRS-IB and GRS-IBS are examined. The former uses a GRS bridge abutment with a staged-construction full height rigid (FHR) facing integrated to a continuous girder on top of the FHR facings. The latter uses a block-faced GRS bridge abutment that supports the girders without bearings. In addition, a conventional integral bridge (IB) is considered for comparison. The numerical analyses of the three bridges using Plaxis 2D under static and dynamic loadings are presented. The results showed that the GRS-IB exhibited the least lateral displacement (almost zero) at wall facing and vertical displacements increments at the top of the abutment compared to those of the GRS-IBS and IB. The presence of the reinforcements (GRS-IB) reduced the vertical displacement increments by 4.7 and 1.3 times (max) compared to IB after the applied general traffic and railway loads, respectively. In addition, the numerical results revealed that the GRS-IB showed the least displacement curves in response to the dynamic load. Generally, the results revealed that the GRS-IB performed ahead of both the GRS-IBS and IB considering the internal and external behavior under static and dynamic loading.
The Saemangeum seawall, located on the western coast of Korea, is 33.8 km long and is known as the longest embankment in the world. The Saemangeum project is underway for road, railway, and port constructions for internal development. In the Saemangeum area, suitable granular soil for embankment material is difficult to obtain. However, silty clay is widely distributed. In this study, a series of model-bearing capacity tests were conducted as a basic study for using clayey soils as embankment materials. The model bearing capacity tests were carried out using a standard metal mold and a customized metal box. The test results showed that clayey soil, with normal moisture content (NMC), exhibited a large deformation and low bearing capacity. However, when the clay was well-compacted, with optimum moisture content (OMC), it exhibited a higher bearing capacity than dense sand. In addition, when crushed gravel and composite geotextiles were placed in the clayey soil with NMC, the bearing capacity was higher than that of dense sand. From the viewpoint of the bearing capacity, it is considered that clayey soil can be used as an embankment material when clay, crushed gravel, and composite geotextiles are properly combined.
Soil is weak in tension but strong in compression. The resistance to tensile deformation of soil is given by the tensile force of the reinforcement in the reinforced soil, and the tensile force of the reinforcement is generated by the frictional force at the soil-reinforcement interface. When the soil-reinforcement is effectively interacted by the compaction, the deformation of the soil becomes equal to the tensile deformation of the reinforcement material, which means that the soil is bound to the tensile force of the reinforcement material and thus has a great resistance to the tensile deformation. Therefore, compaction is one of the major parameters affecting the behavior of the mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall. In this study, a series of numerical analyses was performed to investigate the compaction effect on the behavior of the MSE walls. The results showed that the horizontal displacement of the MSE wall significantly increased during the construction and decreased because of surcharge load application after the construction. In addition, the strains of reinforcement increased significantly during the construction and decreased slightly because of surcharge load application after the construction. Therefore, it is important to consider the compaction loads when modeling the MSE walls, so that the lateral displacement at wall facing will not be underestimated during construction and will not be overestimated because of surcharge load application after the construction.
The geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) bridge abutment with a staged-construction full height rigid (FHR) facing and an integral bridge (IB) system was developed in Japan in the 2000s. This technology offers several advantages, especially concerning the deformation behavior of the GRS-IB abutment. In this study, the effects of GRS in the bridge abutment with FHR facing and the effects of geosynthetics reinforcement length on the deformation behavior of the GRS–IB are presented. The numerical models are analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) in Plaxis 2D program. The results showed that the GRS–IB model exhibited the least lateral displacements at the wall facing compared to those of the IB model without geosynthetics reinforcement. The geosynthetics reinforcement in the bridge abutment with FHR facing has reduced the vertical displacement increments by 4.7 times and 1.3 times (maximum) after the applied general traffic loads and railway loads, respectively. In addition, the numerical results showed that the increase in the length-to-height (L/H) ratio of reinforcement from 0.3H to 1.1H decreases the maximum lateral displacements by 29% and the maximum vertical displacements by 3% at the wall facing by the end of construction. The effect of the reinforcement length on the wall vertical displacements is minimal compared to the effect on the wall lateral displacements.
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