GEOAMERICAS 2024, IGS-NA (International Geosynthetics Society-North America)
President Director of PT Geoforce Indonesia Dandung S. Harninto for four days participated in the GEOAMERICAS 2024 event organized by IGS-NA (International Geosynthetics Society-North America) in the City of Toronto, Canada from 28 April to 1 May 2024. Apart from having read three papers case studies in the form of projects that have been completed to share experiences with practitioners, students and geosynthetic researchers on the American Continent, as well as taking part in the Short Course on Geosynthetics Reinforced Walls and Embankments Including Seismic Aspects with world geosynthetics expert instructor Prof. Richard J. Bathurst ( The GeoEngineering Center, Canada) and Prof. Ennio M. Palmeira (Univesidade de Brasilia, Brazil). These three projects (GSRW at PLTU Suralaya, Geoframe at PLTU Suralaya, and GSRW in Pangkep, South Sulawesi) really attracted the attention of the conference participants with many curious questions from participants about these projects because technically all three of them are still very unique. rarely done by geosynthetic designers/installers in the world. The third project also fully uses geosynthetic materials produced in Indonesia.
GSRW PLTU Suralaya has the highest GSRW retaining wall dimensions, namely 19.44 m with a length of 820 m and quite challenging horizontal alignment - 4 curves - with FABA (fly ash-bottom ash) loads up to 80 m high. Our engineers' ability to model segmental wall structures with PET strap (GI Strip) reinforcement with Plaxis 3D software has been well proven, being able to calculate global stability safety factors (static and dynamic) and estimate optimal walls that are close to actual measurements in the field after construction is complete. .
Meanwhile in the other two cases, the conference participants were very interested in back-to-back slender wall structures with connected reinforcement (GI Strip) where the wall height is greater than the width, because this type of structure is still rarely used in their projects. . And our engineers are also able to model well numerically with Plaxis 3D software, to calculate the value of the safety factor under static load conditions, as well as dynamic loads according to local earthquake loads. From this sharing of experience, it can be concluded that our engineers' ability to design and construct geotechnical work using geosynthetic technology is no less than that of other countries.