Traditionally, Honduras´s engineering has used concrete walls (masonry or reinforced concrete) for the construction of landfill works on hillside. Nonetheless, in places where these walls are built very close to the slope, the weight of these structures makes them susceptible to a potential failure due to global stability, so it is not uncommon to observe cracks, subsidence or collapses in walls of this type built to hillside.
Over the last few years there has been an increase in the use of geosynthetics for road projects, which have been accepted by the local engineering community since they not only provide a more stable and secure solution for global stability but also environmentally compatible and, which, in turn, reduces costs and execution times.
This document presents a case study of a project in Honduras of a mechanically stabilized earth wall with geogrids, which was built on a hillside for a widening of the road in one of the most important stretches of the country´s roads.
The objective of this case study is to show the global stability analyzes performed for the reinforced earth wall with geogrids, showing the variations of the safety factor when implementing this type of wall instead of a concrete wall and the safety factor variations when building the retaining structure with the used filling material (volcanic tuff) in comparison to other materials found in the study area.
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