Construction—North America—Puerto Rico—Slope Stabilizations
DYWIDAG Soil Nails stabilize a Slope
in Puerto Rico’s most popular National Park
El Yunque National Park in northeastern Puerto Rico is a
cool, subtropical rain forest that is visited by 1.4 million
tourists every year and therefore forms part of the most
popular nature reserve in the Caribbean.
The annual amount of precipitation at the
1,067m high El Yunque Mountain amounts to
approximately 3,400mm. Together with some
hurricanes, the heavy rainfalls have caused
over 100 landslides over the years.
The main access road to the national
park, PR 191, has also been affected by
several landslides and had to be closed
for stabilization work.
DSI Construction USA was asked to contribute
to one of these slope stabilization measures
along PR 191. The slope was stabilized by a
12.8m (42ft) tall gabion wall that was tied back
in the slope using DYWIDAG Soil Nails.
The unique feature of this project was that the
drilling process had to be carried out as the
gabion wall was being completed.
The DYWIDAG Soil Nails were anchored at a
minimum depth of 6.1m (20ft) into the rock to
reach a load-bearing capacity of 15t.
DSI USA produced and supplied 56 epoxy
coated, 32mm Ø, 75ksi DYWIDAG Soil Nails
with 45.7 x 45.7cm (18" x 18") bearing plates
for this project.
Owner
US Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration, USA
General Contractor
TAMRIO INC., Puerto Rico
Subcontractor
Carro & Carro Enterprise Inc., Puerto Rico
Architect
US Department of Transportation Federal
Highway Administration, USA
Engineering
Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division,
USA
DSI Unit
DYWIDAG-Systems International USA Inc.,
BU Geotechnics, USA
DSI Scope
Production, supply
DYWIDAG Products
56 epoxy coated, 32mm Ø DYWIDAG Soil Nails
155