China Huaneng Group, a Fortune Global 500 company, is China’s largest power producer. The company is developing a coal processing plant at Hetaoyu coal mine complex in Zhengning County, Qingyang City of Gansu Province in China. This coal mine complex is located within the Loess Plateau. A platform of approximately 1 km long and 140 m wide was created to site the processing plant. To optimise the creation of useable land a retaining wall was constructed beside Jinghe River which flows by the southern boundary of the development site. The reinforced soil retaining wall is about 1 km long and averages 25 m in height but is 35 m at its highest section. The soil used for backfilling was obtained by cutting into selected borrow areas within the project site. This retaining wall was constructed using high tenacity polyester geotextiles as reinforcing elements laid horizontally between layers of compacted backfill soil. Soil bags were generally used to help form the wall facing profile. The reinforcing geotextiles were wrapped around the soil bags and returned at the next level of reinforcement. A total quantity of 510,000 m2 of high tenacity woven polyester geotextiles of ultimate tensile strength up to 300 kN/m was used for the construction of the reinforced soil wall at Hetaoyu. The reinforced soil retaining wall is divided into a few bermed segments. The reinforced soil wall was built in vertically faced segments until elevation 896 m. For the portion of wall constructed with vertical facing, a 0.5 m thick reinforced concrete facial structure was provided. The portion of wall above elevation 896 m till final platform was constructed with vertical to horizontal inclination ratio of 4:1. Over this portion of the wall, a 150 mm thick steel wire mesh reinforced shotcrete cover was provided for long term protection. A cast-in-place reinforced concrete edge capping unit of 0.3 m deep and 1m wide was provided for at the final platform elevation. Construction of the reinforced soil structure began in July 2009 and was completed within a time frame of slightly over 1 year.
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