The engineering wonders built near rivers are susceptible to soil erosion, scouring, water pressure, and other environmental issues that lead to foundation cracks. These cracks can lead to serious problems making the bridge less stable, disrupting traffic, and even putting people’s safety at risk. StrataDrain has been proven to protect bridge foundations. In this blog, we’ll take a close look at foundation cracks, and find how StrataDrain can make soil more stable and structures stronger.
While many structural challenges, such as soil movement, water accumulation, and material degradation, are well known and can be planned for, the amount of maintenance required for such structures often makes cost a major consideration. While many engineers do plan for the eventual degradation of structures, there are solutions available today that help reduce overall maintenance costs while still ensuring strong and reliable structures.
Scour, which is soil erosion around bridge piers, is one of the major factors threatening the stability of a bridge.
Excess water in the soil can lead to high hydrostatic pressure and low soil strength. Drainage geocomposites like StrataDrain are designed to solve this problem by removing the water.
Improved soil strength via drainage: StrataDrain’s primary function is drainage. By removing water, it reduces pore water pressure and increases the soil’s effective stress. This improvement in effective stress directly increases the soil’s shear strength, which helps the foundation better resist applied loads. This is a direct result of drainage, which is a different mechanism from tensile reinforcement provided by products like geogrids.
The riverbanks are continuously subjected to the eroding forces caused by water currents. This causes the bridge foundation to be undermined by the embankment that was eroded.
An effective drainage system is vital to prevent water accumulation that can lead to hydrostatic pressure and instability of the foundation.
In situations requiring direct reinforcement, products like geogrids or high-strength geotextiles are used to add tensile strength to the soil, improving its load-bearing capacity and reducing settlement.
By incorporating appropriate geosynthetics—such as geotextiles for scour protection, geogrids for reinforcement, and drainage geocomposites like StrataDrain for water management—engineers can achieve greater performance and durability in bridge construction.
Client: Embalse EI Rizado
Location: Villena, Alicante, Spain
Strata Geosystems demonstrated its expertise in innovative solutions for environmental integration with the Surface Sealing and Post-Closure maintenance project at Villena’s MSW treatment plant Landfill. The project involved design and delivery for both rainwater drainage systems and gas collection. The client’s primary requirement was to effectively close the landfill while meeting all environmental regulations. An important challenge we faced during this project was the need to design anchor trenches within a confined space. Hence, we provided them with the best solution with our StrataDrain drainage composite and StrataGrid geogrid. In contrast to the traditional approaches including gravel and common geotextiles, Strata’s solution offered high flow rate, enhanced design efficiency and a higher security factor. Characterized with high flow and low creep, StrataDrain is designed to withstand high compressive forces. Drainage composites provide a high-flow pathway to efficiently collect landfill gas, channeling it to a venting or extraction system and thereby preventing uncontrolled pressure buildup and emissions through the capping layer. By preventing the infiltration of particles into the drainage core, it averts the clogging of the system. Take the step to ensure your project’s future is built on a solid, dependable foundation. Contact us now.
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Director, President – Glen Raven Technical Fabrics
Strata/Glen Raven tenure: 10 years/28 years
Total industry experience: 35 years
MBA – Wake Forest University
Directs the strategic direction of Glen Raven’s automotive, protective apparel, military, geogrid, outdoor and logistic businesses.
Director, General Manager, Strata Inc.
Strata/Strata Inc. tenure: 3 years/14 years
Total industry experience: 25 years
MBA – Georgia State University
Led the integration of Strata Inc. business operations into the headquarters of GRTF and transition from USA based to India based manufacturing.
Director
Strata tenure: 17 years
Total industry experience: 47 years
CA – ICA
Played a key role in the establishment of Strata’s India operations. Provides vision for product innovation and leveraging new technology trends.
Global Technical Sales Director
Strata tenure: 7 years
Total industry experience: 32 years
Civil & Geotechnical Engineer (First class)
Provides highly technical and innovative civil engineering solutions in India and around the world. Responsible for the design and execution of large-scale geotechnical projects around the world including Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and South America.
CTO – Chief Technology Officer
Strata tenure: 9 years
Total industry experience: 48 years
BTech (Hons), MTech (Civil) Both IIT Bombay, DMS (Bombay University), FIE, FIGS, Chartered Engineer
Streamlines the designs of Geosynthetics and has brought innovation in geogrid and geocell design application.
COO – Projects and Sales
Strata tenure: 13 years
Total industry experience: 24 years
MBA – University of Gujarat
Leads the monetization of products and solutions while ensuring highest execution quality and project profitability.
COO – Technical Textiles
Strata tenure: 13 years
Total industry experience: 33 years
BE (Mechanical) – Nagpur University
Drives excellence in process design, product features and cost effectiveness in production.
CFO – Chief Financial Officer
Strata tenure: 8 years
Total industry experience: 35 years
CA – ICA, ICWA – ICWAI
Leads the finance, accounting, taxation, commercial, legal and IT functions and assisting on all strategic and operational matters.
CDO – Chief Development Officer
Strata tenure: 10 years
Total industry experience: 13 years
MBA – ISB, Hyderabad
Leads diversification of the product portfolio, monetizing the new products and ensuring successful sustained financial growth of the company top line.
CEO – Chief Executive Officer
Strata tenure: 14 years
Total industry experience: 42 years
B Tech (Chemical) – IIT Delhi
Leads day-to-day business operations of the company with focus on capacity expansion, product and process improvement.
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