Geosynthetic reinforcements help typhoon-proofing in Taiwan

{ACE Geosynthetics Inc.} Houston, Texas, U.S.A.

On August 7, 2009 Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan with unrelenting rain and wind that proved to be the deadliest typhoon ever to strike the island nation. More than 600 people were killed, and damage is estimated to be $3.3 billion. One of the lessons learned from this typhoon is that geosynthetic reinforcement can preserve infrastructure improvements in virtually any instance, even against a catastrophic event such as this storm. Using AceGrid GG400-1 and GG 200-1 in a combination of soil nails and geogrids, a complex road and steep-slope repair was constructed that maintained an important artery in Pingtung County in southernmost Taiwan. The primary engineering goal of this project was to enhance the stabilization of the existing slope and disperse lateral earth pressure within the slope, then to fix a connection system on the bearing plate of soil nails with the geogrid to eliminate pullout failure due to insufficient buried length of geogrid. ACE Geosynthetics received an Award of Excellence in IFAI’s 2009 IAA competition for this successful project.