What is Galvanized Gabion Baskets and Why Do We Use Them?

11 Aug.,2025

 

What Are The Advantages of Gabion Basket?

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Why Gabion Baskets Are So Widely Used for Protection & Decoration?

You may have seen them in many places like cage baskets stacked on slopes and rivers and noise barriers when trains are whistling, etc. These cage baskets are called gabion baskets.Modern gabion baskets are made of metal meshes that are filled with stones, gravels or pebbles. Sometimes, internal ballasts like concretes or sands are applied to maintain its stability. Nowadays, an increasing number of people are aware of its aesthetic value, therefore, gabion baskets are widely used in gardens, streets, and buildings for the construction of walls, pillars, benches and garden planting. Gabion baskets are manufactured in a wide range of specifications to meet your specific demands and design requirements.

Gabion baskets are so widely used, what are its advantages?

  • Flexibility and durability

    Gabion baskets have been used for such a long time since its born, one of the main reasons may contribute to its flexibility and durability. Gabion baskets may be locally deformed under high pressure. However, the whole structure will not be destroyed, thus avoiding the damage to its structural integrity.

  • High strength

    Gabion baskets are made of high quality galvanized steel wire or Galfan wire with high strength, which provides a solid structure and makes it become rigid under the action of tension. In addition, the sediment and vegetation in the gabion make it stronger as time goes on and form a natural permanent structure. Many people adopt gabion baskets for bench bases and retaining walls based on this character.

  • Good permeability

    Gabion basket essentially leaves space among stones. This accelerates the flow of air and water, ensures the natural exchange of water and soil, and takes an active part in the growth and survival of living organisms and microorganisms in the water to purify the natural environment of waters.

  • Economical & low cost

    Gabion baskets can be easily assembled by yourself without help, which makes you free from installation costs.

  • Vegetation afforestation

    Laying a soil layer on the gabion basket during construction helps the natural sink of gaps in the water when filling protective works and protects the living environment of green vegetation in the water. Plants can grow almost naturally. Naturally-grown plants have strong lodging resistance and can withstand harsh natural environments.

  • Corrosion resistance

    The main purpose of gabion baskets is to reduce or prevent corrosion. Gabion baskets are made of galvanized steel wire or Galfan wire that can be exposed to wind, rain and sunlight, and resist strong corrosive substances.

  • Aesthetic appreciation

    The main reason why gabion baskets are used in gardens and streets is that it looks natural and beautiful though it is an artificial structure. In addition, it can also vary in sizes and shapes. For example, you can choose curved or round gabion baskets. Besides, you can fill your gabion baskets with fillings of various colors, textures and sizes to match up with the surrounding environment.

  • Long service life

    Gabion baskets enjoy a lifespan of decades when used under natural conditions. In addition, it is almost maintenance-free.

Gabion - Wikipedia

Cage full of rock Not to be confused with Bastion.

A gabion (from Italian gabbione meaning "big cage"; from Italian gabbia and Latin cavea meaning "cage") is a cage, cylinder, or cube, typically mesh, filled with solid material suitable to use in various civil engineering and military applications. Ballasts include rocks, sand, soil, used tires, and other recycled items.

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Among the most common civil engineering uses are erosion control, retaining walls, and impact attenuation; in the military gabions commonly protect forward operating bases and artillery firing positions against small arms and indirect fragmentary explosives. Applications include sleeping quarters, mess halls, checkpoints, and revetments for aircraft.

Design

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The shape, proportion, and internal and external construction, reflect the use of each form of gabion.

Types:[1]

  • Maccafierri: a box shaped gabion made out of galvanized steel, stainless steel, or PVC coated steel wire mesh.
  • Bastion: a gabion lined with an internal membrane, typically of nonwoven geotextile, to permit the use of granular soil fill instead of rock.
  • Mattress: a form of gabion designed to be laid flat singly rather than a stacked.[2]
  • Trapion: a form of gabion with a trapezoidal cross-section, designed for stacking to give a sloped rather than stepped face.

Uses

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Civil engineering

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Leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion called a Corbeille Leonard ("Leonard[o] basket") for the foundations of the San Marco Castle in Milan.[3]

A box-shaped wire mesh gabion for erosion control, the most common civil engineering application, was refined in the late 19th century in Italy and patented as the Maccaferri gabion.[citation needed] it was used to stabilize shorelines, stream banks and slopes. Other uses evolved, including retaining walls, noise barriers, temporary flood walls, silt filtration from runoff, small dams, fish screening, channel lining, and stepped weirs, which enhance the rate of energy dissipation in a channel.[4]

The life expectancy of gabions depends on that of their wire. Galvanized steel wire is most common, but PVC-coated and stainless steel wire are also used. PVC-coated galvanized gabions have been estimated to last for 60 years.[5] Some gabion manufacturers guarantee a structural integrity of 50 years.[6]

In the United States, gabions were first used in stream erosion control projects beginning in .[7] More than 150 grade-control structures, bank revetments and channel deflectors were constructed on two U.S. Forest Service sites. Eventually, a large portion of the in-stream structures failed due to undermining and lack of structural integrity of the baskets. In particular, corrosion and abrasion of wires by movement of the streams’ bedload compromised the structures, which then sagged and collapsed into the channels. Other gabions were toppled into channels as trees grew atop their revetments, leveraging them toward the streams.

Gabions have also been used in building construction, as in the Dominus Winery in the Napa Valley, California, constructed between and . The exterior is formed by modular wire mesh gabions containing locally quarried stone, allowing air movement through the building and moderating interior temperatures.[8][9]

Military

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Early gabions were round open-ended cages made from wickerwork filled with earth and used as military fortifications.[10]: 38  In one example, willow twigs were brought from East Lothian to make gabions to protect gun emplacements during the April siege of Edinburgh Castle.[11]

Such early military gabions were most often used to protect sappers and siege artillery gunners.[10]: 39  The wickerwork cylinders were light and could be carried relatively conveniently in the ammunition train, particularly when made in nesting diameters. In use they would be stood on end, staked in position, and filled. During the Crimean War, local shortages of brushwood led to use of scrap hoop-iron from hay bales, inspiring purpose-built sheet-iron gabions.[10]: 182 

Today, gabions are used to protect forward operating bases (FOBs) against small arms and explosive, fragmentary, indirect fire such as mortar,l or artillery rounds. Applications include sleeping quarters, mess halls, anywhere large concentrations of unprotected soldiers might gather, blast walls, and aircraft revetments. A modern form is the Hesco bastion".

Impact attenuation

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Gabions may be used for attenuating dynamic loads, such as those resulting from impacts by vehicles or rockfall.[12] Depending on what they are filled with, gabions may be highly deformable, dissipating impact forces. This has led to the use of recycled materials such as used tires and ballast from railway tracks to fill some rockfall protection embankments.[13][14]

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See also

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  • Cellular confinement – Confinement system used in construction and geotechnical engineering, a small-scale mattress gabion used for roads, retaining walls, and protective structures.
  • Hesco bastion – Flood control and military fortification barrier, a modernized version of the same concept
  • Maccaferri gabion – Type of rock-filled cage, wire mesh gabions introduced into modern civil engineering
  • Stepped spillway – Structure for energy dissipated release of flows from a dam or levee

References

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