Two measurement programs of a “classic” and of a “novel” geosynthetic structure

The paper handles two measurement programs and their results. The first program was ap-plied to a highway embankment on soft soils with basal high-strength reinforcement at Grossenmeer in Germany. The embankment was built in summer 1986, the use of basal reinforcement (being today “clas-sic”), was at that time a novelty. Among others strains in the woven were measured from the same begin-ning and continued under traffic for many years. Most important results were published in the 90ies and in 2010. The measurements continued until 2016, i.e. over totally thirty years. To our knowledge this is the longest measurement program on geosynthetic reinforcement ever performed. Latest results for seven years more after 2010 are published and commented. The second program is significantly shorter, but ap-plied to a novel system of geosynthetic encased columns (GEC) installed to reduce lateral trust of soft subsoil behind a highway bridge abutment at Berne in Germany. Among others settlements and horizontal stresses at four depths were registered; the latter is a focal point here. Construction and measurements at Berne started in January 2013 and continued under traffic until September 2016, i.e. over three years and a half. Intermediate data until July 2015 were published in 2016. The present paper includes latest results (i.e. for more than one additional year under traffic) and comments.