Reinforced earth: soil wall with strip reinforcement
Tierra armada: muro de suelo reforzado con bandas
- Date
- 1963 · confidence high
- Place
- Gèdre (Pragnères), Hautes-Pyrénées, France
- Credited to
- Henri Vidal
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Layers of granular fill alternate with steel or geosynthetic strips that hold the soil by friction and form a vertical face with panels. It makes tall walls cheaper than gravity walls, tolerating settlement and earthquakes.
Vidal patented the principle in 1963 and built the first experimental wall in 1965-1968 at Pragnères; reinforcement with branches and mats was used in ancient civilisations (the Aqar Quf ziggurat).
What it led to
- bridge approach and road walls in difficult terrain
- geosynthetics and geogrid-reinforced soils
- vertical embankments and steep slopes