MonoAxial GeoGrids

The Al Sahab Rest Area is a new tourist attraction in Khorfakkan, on the East Coast of the Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Initially designed by M/s. Khatib & Alami, the project involves constructing a new mountain road to connect the city to the peak point of Khorfakkan and, after that, building a Rest House at an elevation of 600 m above mean sea level. At the peak point, the visitors can get a panoramic view of the entire city of Khorfakkan and the Gulf of Oman. The mountain road was constructed with traditional cutting and filling techniques. A wider plateau was constructed at the top through peripheral filling to build the Rest House and the parking area. Following the first cycle of rains, there were stability issues for the filling along the sides of the top plateau that necessitated proper slope stabilization solutions. As the height of stabilization reached up to 13m in some locations with extreme space constraints along the toe, retaining structures were required rather than conventional, gentle, stable slopes. Due to the time constraints and environmental issues, the project stakeholders looked for a Mechanically Stabilized Earth wall system (MSE wall) that could be constructed quickly but also minimally interfere with the Khorfakkan mountain surroundings.

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A 12 000m² warehouse for storage of thousands of tons of soya had to be built on of low bearing, silty, fine hydraulic fills which are up to 4m in depth at the Durban Harbour area. These hydraulic fills are underlain by silty sand horizons which are interspersed by sandy clay and sandy clayey silts, which vary from 2m to about 20m in thickness. Calcareous sandstone, soft shale and siltstones were also found at depths of between 25-27m below ground. The water table was at 1. 6m below natural ground. The client needed the structure to be finished as quickly as possible. The challenge was to provide a suitable foundation to carry such huge loads, on such poor founding conditions, in the quickest time.

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‘Ain Dubai in Bluewaters Island’ in the United Arab Emirates is the world's tallest and largest observation wheel, with a height of 250 m. The project is located close to the Dubai marina and comprises an artificial island with various building structures, including the giant observation wheel. Generally, the ground stratigraphy below the island consists of a 2. 5m thick loose marine sand layer followed by calcarenite, sandstone, and conglomerate layers. The average height of the revetment along the island's periphery is 12m. The initial design of the revetement by the designer identified that the top loose marine sand layer is prone to liquefaction post a seismic event. Therefore, the revetement was dimensioned accordingly. However, due to a revised landscaping scheme at the completion stage of the revetment and backfilling, the client wanted to increase the final platform level by an additional 4m at the top of the original revetment by introducing a concrete retaining wall. For this reason, the factor of safety (FOS) of the original revetment in the liquefaction case proved to fall below the minimum requirement. Therefore suitable mitigation measure was required as per the design basis.

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