The Mechanical Stabilized Earth solution to support a road on a 50 meter high slope of rubbish dump with various technical and site challenges

Daniel Calatrava, Nathalie Marcelot

In the proceedings of: GEO2011: 64th Canadian Geotechnical Conference, 14th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, 5th Pan-American Conference on Teaching and Learning of Geotechnical Engineering

Session: Retaining Walls

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a case study of the design and construction of three MSE walls near the newly built Parque Cerro Verde mall in Caracas, Venezuela. The MSE walls are to support 350m of a road located over a 50m high rubbish dump slope. The project faced several technical and site challenges, since the characteristics of the rubbish dump layers were not entirely measurable. A combination of ground improvement and three MSE walls were developed to avoid occurrence of any possible landslide. Based on the proposed solution, three MSE walls have been designed for the top, middle and bottom of the slope. The base of the top MSE wall placed on a rubbish layer where buried steel strips placed in a grid pattern was selected for ground improvement. This design required general slope stability consideration and collaboration with the project geotechnical engineer. PRESENTACIONES TECNICAS El presente caso de estudio corresponde al diseño y construcción de tres muros de suelo reforzado en el nuevo Centro Comercial Parque Cerro Verde en Caracas, Venezuela. Dichos muros dan soporte a la vialidad de acceso de 350m que esta ubicada en la parte superior un talud de 50m de altura con una gruesa capa de escombros sobre el terreno natural. El principal problema técnico enfrentado fue la determinación de las características de soporte de los escombros. La solución adoptada fue una combinación de muros y mejoramiento de suelo para garantizar la estabilidad del talud. La disposición de los muros en el talud fue uno en la parte superior, otro en la mitad y otro en la parte inferior. Para dar soporte al muro superior fundado sobre escombros, fue necesario realizar un mejoramiento de suelo a partir de pletinas entrecruzadas. El diseño requirió la colaboración de un especialista en geotecnia para la verificación de la estabilidad general del sistema. Figura 1. Vista general del muro superior y la edificación.

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Cite this article:
Daniel Calatrava; Nathalie Marcelot (2011) The Mechanical Stabilized Earth solution to support a road on a 50 meter high slope of rubbish dump with various technical and site challenges in GEO2011. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{GEO11Paper617,author = Daniel Calatrava; Nathalie Marcelot ,title = The Mechanical Stabilized Earth solution to support a road on a 50 meter high slope of rubbish dump with various technical and site challenges,year = 2011}