ReSSA+

The 2020 Burmister Lecture at Columbia University was delivered in April by Professor Dov Leshchinsky on Limit State Design Framework for Geosynthetic Reinforced Slopes and Walls.  This framework is acceptable for internal stability by AASHTO 2020 and was implemented in program ReSSA+. For the flyer announcing the lecture including its abstract click here.  Download the video of the presentation (220 MB), click here.  

ReSSA+ is an interactive program used to assess the rotational and translational stability of reinforced slopes and walls. The graphically-rich interface enables users to comprehensively characterize internal stability – pullout, rupture, connection loading – for reinforced soil structures, ranging from simple designs to complex designs that include surcharge, tiered geometry, facing units, non-uniform reinforcement configurations, and even anchoring. Unlike complex numerical methods, ReSSA+ provides a a tension map using conventional geotechnical parameters, enabling direct visualization of distributions of reinforcement loading and their associated capacities (Publication). These results may be used to easily optimize reinforcement selection and layout. This approach, the result of a US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) project (FHWA-HIF-17-004Download). Finally, ReSSA+ can be used to assess global, or compund, stability of reinforced or unreinforced geometries visualized through a safety map, providing a user a spatial distribution of safety factors considering a selected reinforcement design. This intuitive, comprehensive, and powerful tool offers users new capabilities for innovative design of simple or complex reinforced soil structures.

ReSSA+: Overview and Instructive Examples

ReSSA+: Background and Demonstration (including example file)