Flyover reinforced soil and slope stabilization: Cases in Costa Rica

Maccaferri de Centro América Ltda. – Costa Rica.

Abstract

A reinforced soil structure is the introduction of traction resistant elements to increase the resistance of the soil and decrease the deformation of the solid, improving the structural behavior. In the other hand, gabions are a well known system use from many years ago to solve problems due to slope stability by building gravity structures. The construction of public and private projects proposes great engineering challenges. We will see two specific cases in each area, in the private case the construction of a reinforced soil wall to generate a work platform where water tanks will be installed to supply a housing and hotel complex in the coastal area. For this situation, a retention work was designed and built using the Maccaferri Terramesh System, additionally reinforced with high-resistance Paragrid geogrids, manufactured by Linear Composites. The second case was developed in the public sector, corresponds to an overpass or upper road interchange, on Route 32 that connects the city of San José with the province of Limón in Costa Rica, where a reinforced soil wall was built for a major road junction on the new highway. This highway is very important to get the goods to the port of Moín, which is the main point of entry and exit of products from the country.