Background:

Reinforced Earth® pride themselves on being global market leaders in the design and supply of soil engineered retaining structures. Since the original invention in 1963 of the method of using composite earth as a supporting structure, Reinforced Earth® has believed in being at forefront of providing global solutions to the construction industry.

GeoStrap, and the High Adherence (HA) GeoStrap system, are high tenacity geosynthetic reinforcements for reinforced soil structures such as retaining walls, bridge abutments, coastal walls, dams and many more applications. They are used to connect pre-cast or wire mesh panels to a compacted soil structure using frictional properties of the straps to the fill. This, in turn, provides a structural block that often replaces the need for more expensive, less environmentally friendly techniques. GeoStrap offers significant cost advantages with its design life of 120 years. as a synthetic material GeoStrap is particularly durable against salt-attack, making it a suitable choice for marine environments or where de-icing salts are used.

The testing procedure:

With Reinforced Earth®’s products featuring in a highly-regulated market, the engineering principles, testing requirements and more, were principally completed by Reinforced Earth®, -providing critical test results to the BBA in order to add HA Geostrap to the original certification. As part of the BBA’s due diligence procedures, a revision of tests already conducted was carried out, to reiterate and check for consistencies of product type and performance.

BBA work involved the assessment of design, mechanical properties and durability of the product. Successfully passing the procedures, a BBA HAPAS Certificate was issued. The BBA believes in working harder to achieve better, by leaving a footprint that is rooted in integrity, quality and responsibility, and through certification of innovative products like the HA Geostrap system, clients have the confidence and assurance that their products will perform as expected in the market

What happened next?

Because of the BBA HAPAS Certification, this allowed GeoStrap to be used on schemes such as the Carno retaining walls on the A465 Heads of Valleys, which are the highest reinforced soil structures of their kind in the UK.

Over 200km of the GeoStrap was used on the Carno retaining walls, and was featured in the Examplar publication, issued by the Welsh Government. Click here to view the publication. The GeoStrap enabled walls of 33 metres in height to be built, structures which would not have been practical to build otherwise.The main walls on the Northern face were pre-cast, while the south side walls were wire mesh, mineral-filled with GeoStrap product. By utilising GeoStrap, a sustainable solution to creating retaining walls, the project is believed to have saved over 250,000m3 of fill being taken offsite with a 50% reduction of CO2 from the original viaduct solution.

Working in partnership with the BBA:

For over 20 years, Reinforced Earth® has been working together with the BBA’s third-party testing and product certification teams. In order for Reinforced Earth® to remain competitive in their market, and continue to pride themselves on being market leaders through their product innovations, the BBA’s HAPAS Certification ensures that level playing fields are maintained in the industry and that high levels of scrutiny are observed.