Gabion Structures and Design Criteria

Abstract

Nowadays, railway is a kind of transportation due to cheap and safe. In railway construction route, many problems like supporting of lateral soil pressure, slope stability and rock fall have been experienced. Gabion basket and mesh wire have been used commonly for solution of these problems. The gabion basket is a rectangular basket which is obtained from hexagonal-double twisted galvanized mesh wire and is filled with small rock particles or stone. Gabion structures have been constructed with placing these baskets in a certain order. In railway construction, the gabion structures have been used in retaining wall, bridge and tunnel embankment approach, scour protection, slope supporting and stream improvement. The gabion structures, which do not require drainage precaution and are ecologist, have advantages due to flexible structure, long-lived and low cost. Parameters like height of wall, base width of wall and angle of wall have been affected design of the gabion structures. In this study, the gabion retaining wall stability analyses have been performed for different soil parameters and effect of these parameters to the design have been investigated. In addition, general description of the gabion, fields of the gabion application, advantages-disadvantages and design criteria have been presented.