The history of the development and construction of various types of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) structures mainly for railways for the last thirty five years in Japan is described. The total wall length of these GRS structures, without any problematic case, became more than 170 km in 2018. In the 1980’s, GRS retaining wall (RW) with full-height rigid (FHR) facing was developed. The FHR facing is staged-constructed firmly connected to the temporary wall face after the backfill and subsoil has deformed sufficiently. In the early 1990’s, based on this GRS RW technology, GRS Bridge Abutment, supporting one end of a simple girder on the FHR facing via a fixed pin bearing, was developed. In the early 2000’s, GRS Integral Bridge was developed, in which both ends of a continuous girder are structurally integrated to the top end of the FHR facings of a pair of GRS RWs. A number of these GRS bridge structures were constructed while many others are at the stage of design. It is explained that the use of FHR facing, the staged construction and the structural integration are the three major breakthroughs for the development of these GRS structures.
Menu