ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some technologies and presents the experimental abutment, supporting a new road with heavy traffic. Behaviour law of the soil follows the usual representation of strength strain curves for soils. The Saint Saturnin abutment, in the west part of France, was chosen for a full scale experimentation including segmental walls, geosynthetic reinforced soil, up to date measurement of geosynthetic deformation by woven glass fibres and a new approach in stability computation. A new computer code, taking in account the displacement at each point of the potential surface failure, quantify a global safety factor and also a safety margin that give to the engineer an accurate knowledge of safety. In case of bridge abutment technical features must minimize the displacements. The authorities asked for a strong survey of displacements.
