Donor: French Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (CFMS)
Reinforced earth or 鈥淭erre Arm茅e鈥� is a construction technique aiming at improving stability of vertical embankments. Terre Arm茅e construction was developed first by Henri Vidal, a French engineer, in 1964. Its principle is to build an embankment layer by layer while installing reinforcements between each layer. Reinforcements, usually metallic strips, are attached to a face element, while continuing the retaining wall. Soil weight creates friction along the strips which retain the face elements and contracting earth pressure. The overall system is then self-stable.