Design and analysis of geosynthetic reinforced soil bridge abutments are being presented in the Master
of science thesis. Considering recommendations from many scientific papers and technical
specifications from the field of geosynthetic reinforced soil structures, some theoretical bases and
design methods are being presented and properly applied to the Eurocode standards where possible, by
taking into consideration ultimate (ULS) and serviceability limit states (SLS). In the second part of the
thesis first bridge with geosynthetic reinforced soil bridge abutments in Slovenia, built in November
and December 2014 in Žerovinci in municipality of Ormož, has been designed using methods and
equations, presented in this thesis. Some laboratory tests have been previously evaluated at
Geomechanical laboratory of Slovenian national building and civil engineering institute in order to
obtain basic characteristics of foundation soil, building materials and their interaction, needed for the
proper design of the abutments. Some field monitoring also took place during and after construction of
the abutments in order to directly compare required tensile strength of the geosynthetic layers,
considering laboratory test results, calculation results and results from field measurements. To obtain
proper stress – strain relation for the typical reinforced soil it is of main importance to evaluate
laboratory static load test on the specimen with exactly the same building materials – compacted
sandy-gravel material and intermediate geosynthetic layers – as used at the construction site.
Geosynthetic reinforced soil bridge abutments design method, presented in the master of science
thesis, along with the laboratory static load test results for typical reinforced soil could be properly
used in civil engineering design practice.
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