GEOSYNTHETIC-REINFORCED SOIL RETAINING WALLS AS IMPORTANT PERMANENT STRUCTURES - 1996-1997 MERCER-LECTURE

During the past decade, more than 26 km of geosynthetic-reinforced soi l retaining walls (GRS-RWs) with full-height rigid (FHR) facings were constructed in Japan as important permanent structures mainly for rail ways and occasionally for highways. These include retaining walls for embankments, bridge abutments, a wall backfilled with a nearly saturat ed clay constructed on a thick soft clay deposit, a wall that survived a very severe earthquake, and walls constructed to support bullet tra in tracks. The full-height rigid facings are cast in place using stage d construction procedures. A new method of stiffening reinforced soil by vertical preloading and prestressing is also described.