Year: 2008

Location: Lorraine

Country: France

Volume: 2.000 m³ expanded clay 10-20 mm

Owner Builder: DIR EST

Contractor: NGE / Guintoli

Designer: SOL SOLUTION

---

Problem / Solution

To realize the 4 meters enlargement of the escape lane on the highway A31 to Jouy aux Arches, on top of the slope at 13 meters high, DIR EST has requested designers from  Sol Solution to replace an expensive and difficult embankment by an innovative solution. The area is exposed to a high level of settlement from soft soil, and high risk of stability failure. So far the solution is to combine expanded clay and M3S® three dimensional geosynthetic to perform the enlargement on top of the slope at an equal weight to the excavated filling.

Experience

This technical innovation not only allowed to reduce the initial budget but even more to perform the enlargement in a shorter timespan. This also reduced important material transport (up to 30.000 m³ of conventional filling) and gave a better solution to the problems with motorway traffic. This solution reduced to the minimum the disturbances of the project area.

Why expanded clay?

Expanded clay combine lightness and strength that are necessary to build a long term and stable embankment. For this project and application, expanded clay allowed a fast and efficient solution. Expanded clay is fully characterized and for the use of in geotechnical applications parameters available for software calculations.