Impacts & Original Contributions
Professor Jonathan Wu's research effort at UC Denver has made strong impacts and many original contributions to the development and applications of GRS. Highlights of the research impacts and contributions are:
- Adoption of new design concepts and design equations in the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) manual of GRS-IBS (Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil-Intergrated Bridge System).
- Developed improved testing procedure, new design concepts, and construction guidelines of GRS walls (published in report entitled“Revising the AASHTO Guidelines for Design and Construction of GRS Walls.”)
- Developed design and construction guidelines for a new application of GRS -- bridge abutments funded by National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), National Academy of Science. (published in NCHRP Report 556).
- Designed and oversaw nearly a dozen extensively instrumented full-scale loading experiments of reinforced soil structures: The number of full-scale experiments that Professor Wu designed and oversaw is by far more than anyone else in the US. The experiments include Denver test walls, FHWA pier, FHWA bridge abutments, deep patch landslide remediation experiments, shredded-tire slopes and walls, Commerce City walls, Havana abutment and pier, Blackhawk abutments, NCHRP test abutments, and National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) shake table experiment.
- Chaired two international symposiums on geosynthetic reinforced soil, and served as editor of proceedings: One of the symposiums is entitled “Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls,” (1992), and the other “Mechanically Stabilized Backfill” (1997), both proceedings were published by A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
- Coined the term “Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil (GRS)” – a term now used widely in the industry and in the research community around the world. Many construction details of GRS walls that Professor Wu developed have been employed in wall systems around the globe.