Safety assessment of existing retaining structures

Abstract

Over the last years, an increase of damages and defects of geotechnical structures has been observed during detailed safety assessments. This is mostly related to the rising age of these structures and the related decrease of the bearing capacity. The handling and dealing with these existing structures will be a challenging task for future civil engineers. This article should give an insight into damages and defects of retaining structures, which are quite difficult to detect and evaluate in terms of safety and risk. The first part of the article gives a short overview on the state of the art when it comes to the safety assessment of existing retaining structures and introduces a new, currently being edited, ÖGG guideline for this field of civil engineering. The second part deals with corrosion‐induced damages on cantilever walls and shows first results of the research project SIBS (safety assessment of existing retaining structures).

Processing of mobile laser scanning data for large‐scale deformation monitoring of anchored retaining structures along highways

“…This comprehensive monitoring program contributed to the fundamental understanding of the mechanical behavior of such object types. Rebhan, Marte, Tschuchnigg, Vorwagner, and Kwapisz (2019) apply strain and tilt sensors on the front face of a cantilever wall model while artificially inducing corrosion of the reinforcement at different load levels. It is their ultimate goal to quantify the extent of the corrosion, based on sensor data.…”

Versuchstechnische Untersuchungen zu Korrosionsschäden an Winkelstützmauern

“…SIBS V2_04 und V2_05 bildeten eine lokale Schädigung in der Mitte des Querschnitts ab. Zur künstlichen Nachbildung einer Korrosionsschädigung wurde die Methode des elektrochemischen Abtrags (Bild unten rechts sowie ) verwendet. Mit dieser war es möglich, die Querschnittsfläche der Bewehrung schrittweise durch Materialabtrag zu reduzieren und dabei den mechanischen Effekt einer Korrosion in Form einer Querschnittsreduktion nachzubilden.…”

Corrosion damage to cantilever MR walls – Representation in tests and calculations

“…The difficulty is to separate the individual ef fects from each other and clearly identify them, since they also have different effects on structural safety. In addition to the analytical investigations of the be haviour of a cantilever wall under the effects of corrosion damage described here, numerical investigations were al so performed [13] [14] [15]. These are however not dealt with in more detail in the present paper.…”