Huesker provide reinforced soil solutions to support a new river crossing at Kirkstall Forge.

Commerical Estates group carried out the first phase of a £400m project to regenerate Kirkstall forge. One of Britain’s longest used industrial sites.

When complete the site will have 1,050 homes and 300,000 sq ft commercial space.

A key element of the project was the construction of a road between the A65 Abbey road and the new station to the south, which required crossing the River Aire bisecting the site.

The site is in the bottom of the river valley and the A65 is 15m higher than the river, so ground levels had to be raised to create a suitable road gradient.

The bridge deck also had to be 600mm above the 1 in 100 year flood level, which meant the height of the norther river bank needed to be raised.

Reinforced soil walls were chosen to support the new crossing and were reinforced with multiple layers of Huesker’s uni-axial polyester Fortrac geogrids.

The reinforced soil slopes included up to 16 layers of Fortrac geogrid, placed on 400mm thicj layers of compacted granular fill.

Two types of Fortrac T were used with ultimate tensile strengths of 55kN/m and 80kN/. The bridge’s bank sits on nine layers of Fortrac with ultimate tensile strength of 110kN/m.

The slope face was formed by wrapping the geogrid around and back on itself, behind which topsoil and green mesh was placed.

The near Allan Block wall used combinations of Fortrac 80T and 110T geogrid, laid at 200mm and 400mm centres, with anchor lengths of 7m. The walls were formed of concrete blocks sitting on a levelling strip of concrete.