Slope Stabilization Using Old Rubber Tires and Geotextiles

An innovative and inexpensive slope-stabilization scheme is presented that uses old rubber tires and woven geotextile to arrest the deterioration of a hill slope adjacent to a 100 m (328 ft) high microwave-transmission tower on the Indonesian island of Batam. Woven geofabric with a warp and a weft tensile strength of 80 kN/m (5.5 kips/ft) was used to resist the lateral earth pressure of the up to 2.15 m (7 ft) high wall. The internal stability and the sliding resistance, as well as the bearing capacity were checked. Rubber tires that were filled with granite aggregate and quarry waste were used to protect the fabric against direct sunlight and vandalism. Unskilled labor was used for the construction of the wall and of the fill. The total cost was less than 40% of the estimated cost of a conventional retaining wall. The paper discusses the design and the construction of the wall, as well as the costs.