Report of MSE wall stability verification

under erecting U girder from P359 to P365

In order to shorten the erection time of U girders from P359 to P365 and avoid site
clearance of adjacent structures, DLM would like to propose to carry out the erection
works after finishing Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) wall. It means the trigger c rane
is standing close to the MSE wall so that it causes a particular case in comparison with
the initial design of the wall. Thus, Design team shall provide a comprehensive
verification to check whether it is possible to implement the erection work as abo ve
mentioned.

This report consists of 3 main parts such as External Stability, Internal Stability and
Global Stability. All input data are collected from the approved document as follows

I. Construction Design Drawings of RETAINING WALL FROM PIER P348 TO PIER P365 (ref. No. DLM-
IMP-TRE-WVO-L08-90301-B-4B);
II. Construction Design Reports of RETAINING WALL FROM PIER P348 TO PIER P365 (ref. DLM-IMP-
TRE-WVO-L08-90201-E&V-4B);
III. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION FOR MSE WALL SYSTEM (ref. DLM-IMP-TRE-WVO-L08-90202-E&V-
3B).

External Stability
In this section, the reinforced soils in which the polymer strips to be installed is considered as a SOLID
BLOCK. All the loads from retained soils and crane’s trigger will be acting on this block. There are 3 cases
to be checked herewith.

1. Sliding of solid block

Under the resistance loads and driving forces, the sliding condition to be verified by the relation
between these forces.
The conclusion is:

2. Limiting eccentricity
The differences between resistance loads and driving forces causes an eccentricity acting on the
length of soil block. This value to be compared to article 11.6.3.3 AASHTO LRFD.
The conclusion is:

3. Bearing resistance of foundation soil under soil block

Under the accumulated loads due to selfweight of soil and crane’s trigger, the foundation soil to
be verified whether it can fully bear or not.
The conclusion is:

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Internal Stability
In this section, the capacity of polymer strips to be verified by 2 extreme cases tensile and pull out.

1. Tensile resistance strips

Tensions to be occurred in each strips in every layers due to all loads acting on reinforced soil.
These internal forces shall be checked layers by layers with the allowable tension mentioned in
CDR.
The conclusion is:

2. Pullout resistance strips

Under the loads, the face wall intend to move out of the wall. The friction forces between
polymer strips and soil in reinforced soil play a role as a resistance to prevent the failures
happen. Hence, the relation between 2 loads at each layers to be compared to check the pullout
condition.
The conclusion is:

Global Stability
As an important stability condition of an earth-wall structure, the global stability verified in this section.
The sliding surfaces are determined with safety factor in 3 methods Ordinary, Bishop and Janbu by
Geotechnical software GEO/Slope 2007. The minimum safety factor in 3 above methods to be compared
to allowable resistance factor in AASHTO LRFD 2007.

In this software, DLM examined the structure in 2 models as follows.

1. Model with polymer strip as reinforcement loads.

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2. Model with reinforced soil block of which cohesion is 50(kN/m2) and angle of internal friction is
900 degrees; foundation soil’s angle of internal friction is 300 degrees.

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Final Conclusion
After carefully studying above, Design team found out only Global Stability has got a problem regarding
the safety factor. It is worth noting that we examined in 2 different models with many parameters.

Nevertheless, all our calculation should be verified and checked by Headquarter as a cross-check.

(For further information, pls check the attachments and Slope file).

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