Macedonia, Ohio
Our team enjoyed participating in Nordonia High School’s STEM Day! Pete Strawman, Estimator, and Corey Dearth, Project Manager, led exciting demonstrations for students.
“This year we simulated retaining walls by showing the importance of proper reinforcement to prevent failures.” - Pete Strawman.
By applying different forces on the ‘walls’ (plywood), and then adding ‘backfill’ (sand), the experiment demonstrated how the walls would react to pressure based on the different forces.
In the first example, Pete and Corey showed students how no reinforcement material would cause the wall to fail immediately.
In the second example, geofabric was applied at the same length across the height of the wall. This demonstrated that the wall would hold up better than with no material, but it eventually failed.
In the third example, the geofabric was applied in a triangle shape, shorter at the top, longer at the bottom, which successfully held the wall in place. This reinforcement succeeded because as the pressure from the soil (backfill) pushed against the bottom of the wall, the strategically placed geofabric counteracted the force through friction and held the wall in place.
In addition to this demonstration, Pete and Corey reiterated the lesson of friction by taking two books, interleafing the pages, and having students try their hardest to pull them apart.
Thank you to RB Stout for generously donating the geofabric for this demonstration, and to Nordonia High School for having Summit Construction at STEM Day 2025!
Learn more about our student learning program.