The construction and design of flood protection embankment levees within coastal areas has become a focal point for infrastructure management.  The levees are usually constructed over soils with very poor bearing capacity due to their proximity to flood plains.  The foundation soils create issues with long-term settlement, changing the protection height and creating the need to periodically build the levee back to the design height.  In order to reduce settlements and the maintenance required to preserve design height protection, DSM is needed for proper long term load transfer.  

Also, dam sites with slightly cohesive soils and fine sands in the foundation are typically vulnerable to significant loss of strength by liquefaction during a potential strong earthquake.  DSM has been recommended to remediate a potentially weak foundation and thereby improve the seismic stability of an earth embankment dam.  With the proper use of reinforcement, these applications can become even more efficient in time and cost vs. unreinforced.

Raito has decades of successful experience protecting some of the nation’s most challenging levee seepage control, chemical containment, and groundwater cut-off wall projects.  Our products have been utilized in numerous U.S. remediation projects, including Sacramento River Levee Flood Protection and Mississippi River Hurricane Flood Wall projects.  Cutoff walls are used to exclude groundwater from an excavation, to minimize the requirement for dewatering pumping.  Typically, the method involves installing a very low permeability physical cut-off wall or barrier around the perimeter of the excavation to prevent groundwater from entering the working area.  Most commonly, the cut-off is vertical and ideally penetrates down to a very low permeability stratum (such as a clay or unfractured bedrock) that forms a basal seal for the excavation.