Hydraulic and earth engineering – Earth treatment or control – Rock or earth bolt or anchor
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-19
2002-02-12
Bagnell, David (Department: 3673)
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Earth treatment or control
Rock or earth bolt or anchor
C405S284000, C405S285000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06345934
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to earth structures, certain components for use in earth structures and to methods of constructing earth structures.
It is known from EP-A-0 318 243 to provide an earth structure frictionally stabilised by a plurality of elongate stabilising elements in the form of strips extending rearwardly from a facing of the structure into an earth mass. The earth is stabilised throughout the mass by frictional engagement with the strips, thereby enabling the earth mass to behave as an elastic material with greatly improved resistance to failure. The facing of the known structure consists of a series of rows of “C” shaped mesh facing panels arranged one above another. The panels in each row are supported by laterally spaced support straps. These are also “C” shaped, each having an upright front portion in front of the panels and relatively short upper and lower rearwardly extending portions. These upper and lower portions are connected to an earth stabilising strip. Thus the forward end of each stabilising strip is located between a rearwardly extending upper portion at the top of a support strap in one row and a rearwardly extending lower portion at the bottom of a support strap in the row above. A bolt passes through the upper and lower rearwardly extending portions and the stabilising strip to form a secure connection. The support straps are thus only able to support the facing panels in the desired upright condition when they are themselves bolted to an earth stabilising strip.
WO 95/00712 discloses connectors which attach to facing panels at two separated points and which have a common rear portion for attachment to stabilising strips as described above. Once constructed, this system is a successful one. However, the construction process is not as straightforward as it might be, since the facing panels need to be initially supported by temporary stays.
There are disclosed in EP-A-0 197 000 and DE-U-8 326 632, approximately ‘L’ shaped facing panels which may be placed on the ground without extra support. They do however suffer from the disadvantage that they need to be bent specially to the required form. This is difficult and time consuming to carry out on site and if carried out away from the site the resulting cumbersome shape of the facing panels results in high transportation costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided an earth structure comprising a plurality of facing panels, a stabilised earth mass behind the facing panels and a plurality of supports for supporting the facing panels, said supports having rearwardly located portions and being able to rest on their rearwardly extending portions to support the facing panels during construction.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a support for supporting a facing panel for stabilised earth, the support having a rearwardly located portion and being able to rest on the rearwardly located portion to support the facing panel during construction.
The advantage of using such supports to support the facing panels is that construction is much simplified. The supports can simply rest on their rearwardly located portions (i.e. portions of the supports which are located rearwardly of the facing panels) to support the facing panels, which is convenient and useful at the stage when the facing panels are positioned during construction.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of constructing an earth structure, comprising providing a stabilised earth mass behind a facing panel, and providing a support for supporting the facing panel, the support having a rearwardly located portion, wherein the support and the facing panel are positioned with the support resting on its rearwardly located portion to support the facing panel.
In a preferred construction method, a second facing panel and a second support are positioned above the first-mentioned facing panel and support, and the first-mentioned facing panel is backfilled with earth before the rearwardly located portion of the second support is placed on said earth. This simplifies construction, in that backfilling of the first facing panel takes place before the second support is positioned, so that the second support need not obstruct the backfilling procedure.
The supports may be provided separately of earth stabilising means in the earth mass. The separately provided supports are preferably connected to the earth stabilising means, by a bolted or other connection.
According to a preferred embodiment the supports comprise connectors between the facing panels and separate earth stabilising means. Such connectors are preferably relatively small and light in comparison to the facing panels and are therefore easy to transport to a construction site, compared to the ‘L’ shaped facing panels of EP-A-0 197 000 and DE-U-8 326 632.
A connector may be attached to an earth stabilising means before being attached to a facing panel. Preferably, however, the connector and the facing panel are connected together first, and then they can be properly positioned before the earth stabilising means is attached.
The stabilising means to be attached to the connector may take various forms, such as those disclosed in WO 95/00712.
Rather than having connectors provided separately of the earth stabilising means, in an alternative form of the invention the supports may themselves comprise earth stabilising means. Thus the supports may comprise forward end portions of the earth stabilising means. Such an arrangement eliminates the need for a connection (e.g. a bolted connection) between a separate connector and an earth stabilising means, and is advantageous over systems having ‘L’ shaped panels since the earth stabilising means can be relatively narrow.
Preferably each support has at least two laterally spaced rearwardly located portions. By having laterally spaced rearwardly located portions, the support means can itself be relatively stable against lateral movement during construction, and can thus give improved support for the facing panel. The laterally spaced rearwardly located portions are preferably interconnected in a manner maintaining their relative lateral positions. Such interconnection can be achieved for example by a single member e.g. a bar which extends both rearwardly and laterally (being for example U- or V-shaped), or by a pair of rearwardly extending and laterally spaced members, e.g. a pair of bars which are interconnected by at least one cross-member e.g. a cross-bar.
Each support preferably has an upwardly extending portion extending up a respective facing panel. In order to minimise the size of the support, the upwardly extending portion preferably extends only partly up a facing panel which it supports, for example about half way up.
A support may have a single upwardly extending portion to provide the required support. Preferably however each support has at least two laterally spaced upwardly extending portions. This can impart greater stability to the facing panel whilst the earth structure is being constructed, particularly if it is a relatively flexible mesh panel. It also helps to distribute the load from the earth stabilisation during use.
In one preferred embodiment the upwardly extending portion is connected at an upper end thereof to a rearwardly located portion to form substantially an inverted ‘V’ shape. It is a preferred feature of this embodiment that the upwardly extending portion and rearwardly located portion are both engaged with earth stabilising means, to provide attachment thereto.
A preferred feature is that each upwardly extending portion extends from a respective rearwardly located portion. In the case of a connector, each such rearwardly located portion may be connected to a respective discrete earth stabilising means, for example an earth stabilising strip. In a preferred embodiment, however, the rearwardly located portions converge towards the rear of the connector. An earth stabilising means, s
Bregoli Gianluigi
Jailloux Jean-Marc
Bagnell David
Banner & Witcoff , Ltd.
Lee Jong-Suk
LandOfFree
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