Performance of Geosynthetic-Reinforced Walls Supporting the Founders/Meadows Bridge and Approaching Roadway Structures Report 1: Design, Materials, Construction, Instrumentation and Preliminary Results

Details

• Creators:
  Abu-Hejleh, Naser ; Outcalt, William (Skip) ; Wang, Trevor ; Zornberg, Jorge G.
• Corporate Creators:
  Colorado. Department of Transportation
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Bridges
  • Shear strength
  • Backfill soils
  • Mat foundations
  • Retaining walls
  • Geosynthetics
  • Reinforced concrete
  • Roadside structures
  • Road construction
  • Instrumentation
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CDOT-DTD-R-2000-5
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Colorado
• Corporate Publisher:
  Colorado. Department of Transportation
• Description:
  In July of 1999, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) successfully completed the construction of the new Founders/Meadows Bridge near Denver. In this project, both the two-span bridge and the approaching roadway structures are supported by a system of geosynthetic-reinforced segmental retaining walls. The reinforced soil system not only provides bridge support, but it was also designed to alleviate the common bridge approach bump problem. Placement of shallow foundations supporting the high bridge superstructure loads on the top of MSE walls leads to reinforcement tensions and soil stresses mobilized in a different manner than in the case of MSE walls supporting small surcharge loads. This structure was considered experimental and comprehensive material testing and instrumentation programs were conducted. These programs would allow assessment of the overall structure performance and evaluation of CDOT and AASHTO design assumptions and procedures for reinforced soil structures supporting both bridge foundations and approaching roadway structures. Three sections were instrumented to provide information on external movements, internal soil stresses, temperatures, moisture content, and geogrid strains during various construction stages and after the structure opening to traffic. This report initially presents an overview of the reinforced soil wall system design, materials, construction stages, and the instrumentation program. Results of large-size triaxial and direct shear tests on the gravelly backfill soil material and preliminary instrumentation results are presented and discussed. The instrumentation results suggest that the overall performance of this structure, before its opening to traffic, has been satisfactory. CDOT design guidelines of assuming zero cohesion for the backfill strength and testing specimens without the gravel portion of the soil lead to significant underestimation of the actual shear strength of the backfill.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/93454/dot_93454_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.58 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7ee31b1001871e777fc0da0f15467c101a38d167aa348abe92f9d07f0c57c9e025fcbf685c8db069da0bae7df319b17e39b3a4acd7922538f7fd13136a6f1012