Case Study: Mehul Geo Projects LLP – Ocean Rope Gabions Application at Talcher, Odisha

For the Mehul Geo Projects LLP site at Talcher, Odisha, Ocean Non Wovens supplied and installed 200 units of Ocean Rope Gabions. The units were used for retaining walls and landscaping: holding back soil, controlling runoff and erosion, and shaping the site. Ocean also supplied 1,000 Ocean Non Woven Geobags to the same project.

Project overview

• Client / project: Mehul Geo Projects LLP
• Location: Talcher, Odisha
• Products used: Ocean Rope Gabions and Ocean Non Woven Geobags
• Quantity: 200 rope gabion units and 1,000 geobags
• Scope: Supply and installation
• Application: Retaining and landscaping structures

How gabion walls work

A gabion is a mesh cage filled with stone. Stacked and tied together, the units form a gravity wall: its weight resists the soil pressure behind it. Because the stone fill is full of voids, water drains straight through the wall instead of building up pressure behind it. That permeability is the main reason gabions are used for slope stabilisation, erosion control and retaining walls on wet sites, and it lets them do without the weep holes and drainage layers a concrete wall needs.

Site context: Talcher, Odisha

Talcher, in Odisha’s Angul district, is an industrial area known for coal mining and thermal power generation. Soil and rainfall conditions there are demanding. The Mehul Geo Projects LLP site needed retaining structures that could take variable loads, handle surface runoff and improve the look of public and working areas, and could be installed quickly with long-term reliability. Those requirements led to the choice of Ocean Rope Gabions.

Ocean Rope Gabions

Ocean Rope Gabions are flexible mesh units filled with local stone or aggregate to build heavy gravity structures. The rope mesh confines the fill, absorbs energy and tolerates minor ground movement, so the wall deforms slightly under differential settlement instead of cracking. They are used for retaining walls, slope protection, channel linings and landscape features.

Ocean Non Woven Geobags

With the gabions, Ocean supplied 1,000 Ocean Non Woven Geobags. A geobag is a large bag of needle-punched non woven geotextile that is filled on site with sand or local soil and stitched or tied closed. The fabric lets water out while keeping the fill in, so a filled bag stays put under runoff and wave action where loose soil would wash away.

On retaining and landscaping work, geobags are commonly used at the toe of a wall or slope to protect it from scour, to build up levelling courses and platforms, to fill gaps where a gabion face meets the natural ground, and to protect drain outlets where concentrated runoff would otherwise cut into the soil. They can also be planted, since the fabric holds soil and roots. Because they are filled with material already on site, they cut down on the stone that has to be brought in.

Design and installation

The 200 Ocean Rope Gabion units were placed at locations where the site needed both retention and landscaping. During installation:

• Units were set on prepared foundations so the wall would resist sliding and overturning.
• Local quarried stone, roughly 200–300 mm in size, filled the baskets, giving the wall mass while keeping it free-draining.
• The units were built in stepped tiers, curved where needed, to manage surface flow and reduce local erosion.

The stepped stone walls also give a softer transition between hard infrastructure and the planted landscape than a concrete face would.

On gabion retaining walls generally, a non woven geotextile is placed between the retained soil and the back of the baskets. It lets water through but stops soil fines washing into the stone, which would otherwise clog the voids over time and erode the backfill.

Benefits on site

• Drainage and stability: runoff passes through the wall, which keeps hydrostatic pressure off its back. This is why gabions are preferred over solid gravity walls where rainfall is heavy or the water table varies.
• Flexibility under movement: rigid walls can crack under differential settlement or minor seismic activity; a rope gabion wall absorbs the movement without significant loss of integrity. At Talcher, subgrade variability made this useful.
• Vegetation: over time, soil and seeds settle in the voids of the stone fill and plants take hold, so the wall blends into its surroundings.
• Cost: locally sourced stone cut transport and material costs, and the light mesh units needed less labour and machinery than cast concrete.

Long-term behaviour of gabion walls

1. Soil-structure interaction: a gabion wall and its backfill act together. Good compaction of the backfill behind the wall and a filter layer at the interface keep that interaction stable.
2. Vegetative reinforcement: roots that grow through the stone fill and into the backfill add some natural reinforcement.
3. Low intervention: concrete walls often need drainage or strengthening retrofitted later. A properly designed gabion wall has its drainage built in, so it needs little long-term work beyond inspecting the mesh and topping up settled fill.

The same mesh technology is now working in coal country further north: Ocean supplied 140 pieces of double twisted hexagonal wire mesh to a coal plant project in Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh, where gabion structures face similar runoff and disturbed-ground conditions.

Gabion solutions from Ocean Non Wovens

At Talcher, Ocean Rope Gabions gave Mehul Geo Projects LLP free-draining, flexible retaining and landscaping structures built with local stone. Ocean Non Wovens supplies gabions and other geosynthetics for soil retention, erosion control and landscaping across India. See our case studies for more projects.