A Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) wall is a vertical grade separation that
uses earth reinforcement extending laterally from the wall to take advantage of earth
pressure to reduce the required design strength of the wall. MSE wall systems are often
prefabricated to reduce construction time, thus improving constructability when
compared with conventionally cast-in-place reinforced wall systems. However, there is a
lack of knowledge for predicting the service-life of MSE retaining wall systems when
recycled backfill materials such as Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) and Crushed
Concrete (CC) are used instead of Conventional Fill Material (CFM). The specific
knowledge missing is how these recycled materials, when used as backfill in MSE wall
systems, affects the corrosion rate of the reinforcing strips. This work addresses this
knowledge gap by providing recommendations for MSE wall systems backfilled with CC
or RAP, and provides a guide to predict the service-life based on corrosion rate test data
obtained from embedding steel and galvanized-steel earth reinforcing strips embedded in
MSE wall systems backfilled with CC, RAP, and CFM. Experimental data from samples
emulating MSE wall systems with steel and galvanized-steel reinforcing strips embedded
in CC and RAP were compared to samples with strips embedded in CFM. The results of
the testing provide data and methodologies that may, depending on the environmental
exposure conditions, justify the use of RAP and CC for the construction of MSE walls. If
these backfill materials are obtained from the construction site, this could provide a
significant cost savings during construction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1765 |
| Date | 02 June 2009 |
| Creators | Esfeller, Michael Watts, Jr. |
| Contributors | Trejo, David |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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