![]() ![]() But I just want to show you the possibility of enormous amount of impact forces that could be transferred if there is a barrier on top of your wall. This is slightly different than cantilever walls. In this video you can see that there is a barrier on top of a MSE retaining wall (Mechanically Stabilized Earth retaining walls), where soil is built up with reinforcing systems. This video is courtesy of Texas A&M Transportation Institute. These barriers on top of walls transmit enormous forces from crash loads. Well, in case you haven't watched one, please take a look at the following. Have you ever seen a crash test video? It will blow your mind away. So there are additional moments on the wall due to the fence or barrier which can impact the design of the walls. Most of the time what is not discussed in standard textbooks is that most of these walls have fences on top or in case of walls holding up the soil that supports the roadway, then there are barriers or guardrails on top of these walls. If that is not the case, then these walls would fall under the building code. So when does one know what code to design these walls to? Building or Bridge? If these walls are retaining soil that holds up a roadway or in the right of way of a highway then your wall would come under the jurisdiction of transportation safety officials and would need to be designed for AASHTO load combinations. Here is a sample of various soil layers that you would expect to see in the Geotech's report. Building codes like IBC (International Building code) or local codes like CBS (California Building code) are very different than Bridge codes like AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials).įor example, within the building design guidelines, the geotech will give, allowable soil pressures, skin friction, active and passive pressures and end bearing values and skin friction values for the foundation or piles if used.Ī firm geared towards the bridge design industry will give values of soil layers and properties of various soil layers (LPile values - LPile is a software program which is used to design pile foundations by modelling the various layers of soil). Some Geotech firms are geared towards "building design" and some firms are geared towards "bridge design".Įven though both Geotechs will give you what you need for design, getting the values that can be applied in your process will be much easier if you know how and which codes you are designing the walls for. ![]() Choosing a Geotech firm will depend on how you are designing your wall. ![]() With a basic understanding of soil properties and help of a reliable Geotech, you can get most of the information you need to design retaining walls. I'd love to have more civil engineer guest posts on the site to help expand on topics that you find interesting! If you have any feedback, or would like to guest post yourself don't hesitate to contact me at or on the Contact Page, and go support RG!Ī Geotech will be your best friend when it comes to designing retaining walls. She is a great structural engineer that has designed buildings, bridges, power plants, and more throughout the country. Her complete bio can be found below this epic post. Today's post is a guest post done by a friend, RG Spaulding, PE over at StructuralCE. It also emphasizes that what we do on paper is not just a math problem, it is actually a structure that will be built and care should be given as to how best to design it to prevent failure. In this video the soil behind the wall is granular soil. This video perfectly shows the failure plane that forms at an angle behind the wall. The video is courtesy of the British Geological Survey. A common example of a retaining wall in everyday life is basement walls, swimming pool walls, and landscape walls.īefore we discuss how to design retaining walls, I want you to watch a simple but excellent video of how the soil fails behind the retaining wall. The material could be earth, water, anything else that needs to be retained. Retaining walls are as the name suggests any wall that is designed to retain any material. ![]()
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