First used over 4000 years ago Gabion Baskets and mattresses are now used by Quantum engineers in many situations including the stabilization of earth movement and erosion, river control, reservoirs, landscaping and retaining walls

The baskets are made of steel wire mesh, laced together and filled with stones to form structures that can provide a cost effective and sometimes unique solution to many problems.

The advantages of using gabions are numerous in that they are:

• environmentally acceptable - local rock and soils for backfill can be used, with the subsequent growth of vegetative cover.
• flexible – Able to settle and move without failure even on unstable soils.
• The gabion basket has a high compressive resistance (rock-fill) and tensile (mesh) strength.
• Baskets allow free passage of water through the structure, and weep holes are unnecessary.
• Vegetation can be incorporated within or over the structures to blend in with the local environment.
• The integrity of a local ecosystem within a river is unaffected by gabions as they allow the free flow of water and growth of plants through their structure.

River training works were undertaken recently at Pengraig Goch, Powys using gabions filled with site-won material.

While a combination of nails and new gabion wall was employed to stabilise an existing gabionade that showed signs of failure, which retained a series of residential properties in Newport, Gwent.

Quantum’s Geotechnical team also designed a gabion mattress drainage detail in remediating a collapse of a cliff-palaeo channel at North Cliff Beach in Tenby.