ADAMA Software Updates – MSEW and ReSSA

[Correction] Whoops, I think it’s North America’s tallest MSE Wall, not the world’s. Anyone know what the World’s tallest MSE wall is? [/Correction]

TheNewsTribune.com has an interesting article on the Sea-Tac third runway project and how it is nearing completion and an overview of the hurdles faced. This was a unique project from a geotechnical perspective because in order to construct the runway, North America’s tallest MSE retaining wall at 130-ft high was built. One thing I didn’t know is that the 13 million cu-yd of fill needed to construct the runway needed to pass careful inspection to make sure it was free of contaminants and similar in mineralogical composition to the on-site materials. The implications and reasoning are explained in this quote from the article:

“We had to find gravel that originated in the same place in Canada and that was transported here by the glaciers as the gravel that was here on the site,” said King.

The reasoning behind such a requirement is that water that leached through the fill would pick up minute traces of the minerals in the fill, drain into the creeks and confuse or damage native salmon returning to those creeks.

By way of ASCE SmartBrief. 

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Adama Software has released an update to their MSEW software (Update 8.1) for design of Mechanically Stabilized Earth or MSE retaining walls. Download it from their website. (Photo by the Reinforced Earth Company)

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ADAMA Software has released update 10.1 for their Mechanically Stabilized Earth retaining wall design software, MSEW 3.0 as of September 29, 2009. Click through for the download link and a few of the changes.

I expect that when the new FHWA MSE Wall Manual hits the street in a few months time that we will see some significant updates with the MSEW software package.

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