Slope stabilization with high-performance steel wire meshes in combination with nails and anchors

Slope draperies in soil and rock are a well known method to avoid rockfalls into the roads or onto housings. Common wire mesh or a combination of wire mesh and wire rope nets are pinned to the slope by the means of fully grouted nails or anchors. Most of these installations have not been designed to stabilize the slope, but simply avoid the rocks from bouncing. The combination of soil- or rocknailing with a designable flexible facing system offers the advantage of a longterm stabilization of slopes and can replace other standard methods for slope stabilization. The capability to transfer axial and shear loads from the flexible facing system to the anchor points is most decisive for the design of the stabilization system. But the transfer of forces by mesh as pure surface protection devices is limited on account of their tensile strength and above all also by the possible force transmission to the anchoring points. Strong wire rope nets increase the performance for slope stabilizations with greater distances between nails and anchors and are widely used in Europe. However, they are comparatively expensive in relation to the protected surface. Today, special processes enable the production of diagonally structured mesh from high-tensile steel wire. These mesh provide tensile strengths comparable to wire rope nets. The interaction of mesh and fastening to nail / anchor has been investigated in comprehensive laboratory tests. This also in an effort to find a suitable fastening plates which allows an optimal utilization of the strength of the mesh in tangential (slope-parallel) as well as in vertical direction (perpendicular to the slope). The trials also confirmed that these new mesh, in combination with suitable plates, enable substantial pretensioning of the system. Such pretensioning increases the efficiency of the protection system. This restricts deformations in the surface section of critical slopes which might otherwise cause slides and movements as a result of dilatation. Suitable dimensioning models permit to correctly dimension such systems. The new mesh with the adapted fastening elements have already been installed in first pilot projects in Switzerland and Germany and provide useful information on handling and effects.