Patent Application
20240360642
The present invention generally relates to modular earth retaining walls, and more particularly, to mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining walls.
Modular earth retaining walls with concrete panels are commonly used for architectural and site development applications. Such walls are subjected to very high pressures exerted by lateral movements of the soil, temperature and shrinkage effects, and seismic loads.
In many commercial applications, for example, along or supporting highways, etc., each concrete panel can weigh between two and five thousand pounds and have a front elevational size of about eight feet in width by about five feet four inches in height.
Oftentimes, the earth retaining walls of this type are reinforced. More specifically, a conventional mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining wall with steel reinforcement is typically reinforced with steel strips or welded wire meshes that extends backward, or perpendicular, from the rear of a concrete panel to reinforce the backfill soil.
The inventor of the present application filed a patent application Ser. No. 17/380,697 on Jul. 20, 2023, with a design for an MSE retaining wall with reinforcement rods having spaced pullout inhibiting structures (e.g., round planar disks), which application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirely. Although this design tested well in field tests and had significant merit, it undesirably employed specially made parts that resulted in high cost as well as difficulty in terms of installation.
Some of the significant challenges in this field of design are the cost and design complexity that oftentimes requires specially made parts that are not readily available. That is the focus of the present disclosure.
The present disclosure provides various embodiments of an inexpensive and effective mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining wall that employ, for reinforcement, cylindrical rods and that can be produced from widely available parts.
One embodiment, among others, can be summarized as follows. A concrete panel is provided. A steel connector is also provided with a loop and first and second stems. The loop is secured within the concrete panel. The first and second stems are secured to and extend in a linear manner outwardly from the loop. Each of the stems has a circular aperture, which are aligned. A steel reinforcement rod, for example, rebar, is provided within backfill soil. A steel threaded attachment rod, for example, a coil thread insert, is secured to and extends perpendicular from the reinforcement rod. The attachment rod also extends through the circular apertures of the connector. A steel screw nut is threaded on the attachment rod to thereby secure together the stems and the reinforcement rod.
Other embodiments, apparatus, systems, methods, features, and advantages of the present disclosure will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional embodiments, apparatus, systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the present disclosure, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
Many aspects of the disclosure can be better understood with reference to the following drawings. The components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Moreover, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the several views. The dimensions indicated in some of the figures are associated with a nonlimiting examples of an embodiment.
As illustrated, the concrete wall panel 12 has a generally planar body with a frontside, a backside, and a surrounding peripheral edge.
The reinforcement rod 14 has a longitudinal body with first and second ends with the first end residing with the backfill soil and the second end being secured within a wall panel 12. The second end is secured within the wall panel 12 when the wall panel 12 is cast. Although not required, each rod 14 preferably comprises raised ribs along its longitudinal body. In the preferred embodiment, each rod 14 is standard rebar, which is inexpensive and widely available.
As shown in
In the preferred embodiment, the first part 16a of the connector 16 is a triangular-shaped steel loop 19, and the second part 16b comprises first and second stems 21a, 21b secured to and extending in a linear manner outwardly from the steel loop 19. Each of the stems 21a, 21b has opposing first and second generally flat sides extending between first and second edges and having the circular aperture 18. The first side of the first stem 21a being contiguous with the second side of the second stem 21b. Moreover, the circular apertures 18 of the stems 21a, 21b are substantially aligned with each other. Furthermore, because the first and second stems 21a, 21b a contiguous (with no separation), no concrete gets in between them when concrete is poured to cast the panel 12.
In this preferred embodiment, the loop 19 and stems 21a, 21b are formed from a singular elongated steel plate having opposing first and second generally flat sides extending between left and right edges and first and second ends, the loop being triangular in shape, the first and second stems formed by respective longitudinal parts near the first and second ends of the steel plate. The widely available connector 16 is machine produced in mass and readily available for flat plate steel strips and/or welded wire mesh, which are commonly used with MSE wall structures. The current invention involves the unique method of attaching the common, machine produced connector to an unconventional round reinforcement rod 14.
In alternative embodiments, the connector 16 may have only a single stem extending from the loop 19.
In yet other embodiments, the loop 19 of the connector 16 could have a different shape, for example, T-shaped, circular, irregular, partial loop, linear, non-symmetrical, etc.,
As illustrated in
Finally, many modifications and other embodiments disclosed herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which the disclosed compositions and methods pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the disclosures are not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. The skilled artisan will recognize many variants and adaptations of the aspects described herein. These variants and adaptations are intended to be included in the teachings of this disclosure and to be encompassed by the claims herein.
