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Maccaferri's Green Terramesh used in San Paulo airport

31 Mar '16

2 min read

Green Terramesh-based containment by Maccaferri, Italian company that designs and develops solutions in the civil engineering, geotechnical, and environmental construction, has been used in San Paulo Catarina executive airport.

The Sao Paulo Catarina Executive Airport is one of the three commercial airports serving San Paulo in Brazil. Project engineers had to find a solution that facilitates the containment of a slope in a landfill in the western head of the runway in order to proceed with the project.

Maccaferri's Green Terramesh solution was chosen to strengthen the soil by using geosynthetics. This unique solution is an environmentally friendly modular system used to form vegetated (green) faced soil reinforced slopes (also known as Mechanically Stabilised Earth) and embankments, according to a press release.

The angled front face and the erosion control blanket of the Green Terramesh, enables the establishment of the natural vegetation of the units. The Green Terramesh unit consists of pre-fabricated components of double-twisted wire mesh (8×10 type), lined with an erosion-control blanket and stiffened with a welded mesh panel to speed up the construction process. The Terramesh system has proven high performance (displacements and deformations) in reinforced soil structures of this site, providing reassurance to the client.

During construction, instrumentation was installed to provide feedback and verification on the performance of the structure in-use and included both performance of the soil reinforcement elements and the dimensional control of the structure.

At the heart of the Green Terramesh unit is a single piece of double twisting steel wire hexagonal mesh which forms the soil reinforcement geogrid, the front face and the upper return; no connections are needed between the geogrid and the facing system. The steel mesh is coated in a GalMac zinc-aluminium alloy with a polymer coating to deliver a long design life. On taller structures, Maccaferri's polymer geogrids, MacGrid WG, Paragrid, and Paralink are used as primary soil reinforcement within these structures. (GK)

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