Case study of GFRP as a sheet-pile wall for stream bank protection in Taiwan

Abstract

The successful design of a structure requires not only the proper analysis of the structure but also the careful consideration of the environment that the structure is situated in. For many waterfront structures such as those near harbors, lakes, streams, and creeks, water is especially an engineering problem. To alleviate this problem, a sheet-pile wall made of glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) was introduced in a pioneering stream bank stabilization (revetment) project at the Nan-Zi-Gou creek in the Shihmen Reservoir watershed of Taiwan. This paper presents the project as a case study and describes the material experiments and the finite-element analysis of revetment stability. The final construction of the GFRP sheet-pile wall was completed successfully. It is said that this pioneering work brought many positive features of GFRP to construction and could serve as a model for future replication.

Keywords

• Glass fiber reinforced plastics
• Sheet-pile wall
• Finite-element method
• Euler beam
• Timoshenko beam