Embankment Reinforcement
EASILY STABILIZE EMBANKMENTS AND PREVENT EROSION
The Benefits of Embankment Reinforcement with BaseCore™ Geocells
Embankments are necessary for the form, structure, protection and even beauty of your property, but they are vulnerable to erosion and can become a costly maintenance issue. Performance Footing offers BaseCore™ geocells to assist you in safeguarding your embankments.
Embankments are essential to many of our road structures and drainage solutions. Making sure they have reinforcement that withstands the test of time is integral to the safety and maintenance of these earthen structures.
Here, BaseCore geocells can provide both stability and safety while also reducing the overall costs of your embankment now and in the future.
Keep reading to learn why.
The Importance of Embankment
and Slope Stability
When working with embankments, short-term stability can be difficult to achieve. These freshly built structures are often made of gravel and soft soils, completely lacking the beneficial effect of the material consolidation which occurs over time. As such, new embankments leave substrate loose, uncompacted, and vulnerable to the next downpour.
When material begins washing away, this is often the first domino to fall, setting off a chain of other challenges. Poorly stabilized soil can result in issues ranging from improper drainage, shifting slopes, pavement damage, and eventual maintenance costs to patch up the structure.
Geocells help reinforce the stability of embankments so you can avoid these problems. This is done by minimizing two major problems: erosion and poorly supported slopes.
Erosion
When dealing with the steep slopes found on most embankments mixed with the soft soil used to create them, you end up with a system that is prone to weather and impact erosion. While the materials consolidate over time and eventually become stronger, making sure everything stays in place in the meantime is of utmost importance.
Geocells help minimize erosion and sinking by providing your substrate a “pocket” to fall into.
The rigid nature of these pockets helps give your substrate vertical support, thus making it less prone to fall away under pressure or with heavy rains.
Steep Slopes and Stabilization
Working in tandem with minimizing erosion, geocells can be stacked in layers to give support throughout the entire height of an embankment’s slope.
Geocells be used to enforce the entirety of a slope, and also to reinforce the underside of the roadway itself.
Instant vertical support allows for immediate reinforcement from vehicle traffic even on newly distributed substrate. Furthermore, because the excavation depth is up to 3 times lower than traditional methods of substrate reinforcement, you will need less material overall.
Designing With Geocells
The strengths of geocells are undeniable, but what are the benefits of working them into your design? The versatility of this material allows for countless benefits, but the following are the top three contenders:
1. Shallow Excavation Needs
With BaseCore™, the excavation needs of your base layer are dramatically reduced. In fact, they are three times shallower than other methods of building a base.
This means that you not only benefit from the support geocells can provide, but your material costs are dramatically reduced.
2. Better Material Retention
BaseCore™ provides such powerful vertical support that, over time, less material erodes. This means you will have less touch-ups and fills to any freestanding substrate.
3. Long Lasting Support
When an embankment is poorly supported, it can cause major challenges with both the slope and the operative road. This can lead to material erosion, poor drainage, poor water control, and the driving hazards of sunken, deteriorating, pavement. As these problems persist and worsen, costs can add up and create financial burden from regular maintenance.
BaseCore™ minimizes these structural problems with heavy-duty support made to withstand anything from semi-trucks to military vehicles, resulting in long-term savings and, most importantly, safety.