MSE Walls with independent Full-Height Facing Panels: Fid-Bau Portal

MSE Walls with independent Full-Height Facing Panels

Abu-Hejleh, Naser / Hearn, George / McMullen, Michael / Zornberg, Jorge G.

MSE walls with independent full-height facing panels (MSE/IFF walls) combine self-stable reinforced fill, full-height facing panels not attached to fill reinforcements, facing anchors that accommodate panel movement during construction, and a trench with flow fill and bracing for the temporary support of facing panels during construction. Colorado DOT built an MSE/IFF wall in 1996 along I-25 with two tiers of reinforcement lengths (8 ft long in the lower zone and 20 ft long in the upper zone). This wall system offers rapid and reduced construction work, an appearance similar to monolithic walls, and slender and lightweight facing panels since they carry only limited lateral pressure from fill. Since this MSE wall system is the first of its kind, it was considered experimental and a comprehensive instrumentation and monitoring program was performed. The objective of this research is to establish a workable and predefined MSE/IFF wall system and to refine design and construction methods used for the I-25 MSE/IFF walls. This paper reports the features, design, materials, construction, instrumentation, and measured performance of the I-25 MSE/IFF wall. Wall performance and design are assessed in terms of measured movements of facing panels and measured loads in fill reinforcements and facing anchors. The wall system performed as intended in the design. During construction, the wall facing was allowed to move outward sufficiently to mobilize tensile strains in the reinforcements and keep lateral earth pressure on facing panels low. After eight years, the I-25 wall shows no signs of distress or alignment problems.