STUDY ON APPLICABILITY OF A GABION FACED REINFORCED SOIL WALL IN A COLD AND SNOWY ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

A gabion faced reinforced soil wall is developed because it is suitable for places that have a risk of water rise in an embankment, such as wetlands and catchment areas, and it can have a steep slope. Accordingly, we constructed an experimental wall in a cold and snowy environment to measure, over two seasons, the deformation behavior associated with the melting frozen ground and the water content behavior of an embankment caused by snowmelt or heavy rain. In this study, we have used the measurement results and the outcomes of heat transfer and seepage flow analyses with the former results to work on not only how to arrange permeable heat insulating materials suitable to cold and snowy environment and base drainage layers but also whether nonwoven fabric is necessary.