| dc.description.abstract | Steel sheet piles, primarily used as retaining walls when excavating soft ground and for stabilizing fills, are introduced as flexible components for a variety of effective and space-saving avalanche defense structures. Where ground conditions are favourable sheet piles can be arranged in any actual pattern and may have fixed spacing for any given snow depth and slope-angel. Both catching and deflecting dams and methods of energy dissipation, is presented. The design and layout, and choice of pile profile, dimension and quality of steel, are based on the dimensioning load and actual purpose of the measure. Single and double steel sheet walls and barriers are space-saving and more flexible than alternative mitigative measures of comparable efficiency. They are also much faster and normally cheaper to construct than structures erected by concrete, stonewall, geo-textiles or steel fabrics given the actual ground conditions. Examples applied for protection of rural highways in Iceland are exhibited. | en_US |
