Study on Reinforcing Effect of Gabion Wall Facing with Reinforcing Materials during Flooding Using Open-Channel Experiments

Flood Back-fill Reinforced soil wall Scale model experiment Open-channel experiment
["Kurokawa, Masahiro","Kawajiri, Shunzo","Ogasawara, Akinobu","Liu, Shuang","Kubo, Mikio","Yoshida, Miki"] 2025-06-01 期刊论文
(5)
Bridges are important social infrastructure, and in particular, the stability of the back-fill behind the abutment determines the safety of the entire bridge. Recent climate change has increased the risk of flooding, and damage caused by back-fill erosion and collapse is increasing. The objective of this study is to elucidate the damage mechanism of the back-fill of bridge abutments during floods and to propose new reinforcement techniques. In the experiments, indoor open channel tests using a scaled model were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the Gabion Faced Reinforced Soil Wall (GRW), which is a reinforcement method integrating gabions and geosynthetics to reduce the collapse of the back-fill due to flooding. The result of the study showed that the GRW was effective in preventing the collapse of the back-fill due to flooding. As a result, the time until complete collapse of the back-fill was three times longer in the case where GRW was installed than in the case where no countermeasures were taken. This suggests that GRW may be effective during flood events. However, boiling due to changes in pore water pressure occurred inside the back-fill, resulting in progressive sediment discharge. In particular, the effect of the gabion installation geometry was observed, confirming that the corner design is important to control scour. This study experimentally verified the effectiveness of the reinforced soil wall and provided knowledge that contributes to improving the durability of abutment back-fill during flooding. In the future, quantitative evaluation will be conducted to establish a more practical design method.
来源平台:TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE GEOTECHNOLOGY