Retaining Walls

Introduction

Introduction
Retaining walls are used to retain earth (or other
material) in a vertical position at locations where an
abrupt change in ground level occurs.
The walls therefore prevents the retained earth from
assuming its natural angle of repose.

Backfill & Surcharge

The material retained or supported by a retaining
wall is called backfill.
Backfill may have its top surface horizontal or
inclined.
The position of the backfill lying above the
horizontal plane at the elevation of top of wall is
called surcharge & its inclination to the horizontal is
called as Surcharge angle.

Types of Retaining Walls

Cantilever Wall
Buttress wall
Bridge Abutment

Gravity Wall
Counterfort Wall
Basement Wall

Gravity Walls
The gravity wall resist
the earth pressure
exerted by backfill by its
own self weight (dead
load) .
It is usually built in
stone masonry, and
occasionally in plain
concrete.

Gravity Walls
The gravity wall
provides stability by
virtue of its own weight ,
and therefore, is rather
massive in size.
It is usually built in
stone masonry, and
occasionally in plain
concrete.

Gravity
Wall
The thickness of wall is also

governed by need to
eliminate or limit the
resulting tensile stress to its
permissible limit .
Plain concrete gravity walls
are not used for heights
exceeding about 3m, for
obvious economic reasons.

Gravity Wall

Stress developed is very

low.
These walls are so
proportioned that no
tension is developed
anywhere and the
resultant of forces
remain within the
middle third of the base.

Cantilever Wall
The Cantilever wall is
the most common type
of retaining structure
and is generally
economical for heights
up to about 8m.
The structure consists of
vertical stem , and a
base slab, made up of
two distinct regions,
viz., a heel slab and a
toe slab

Cantilever Wall
All three components
behave as one way
cantilever slabs:
stem acts as a vertical
cantilever under the lateral
earth pressure
heel slab acts as a
horizontal cantilever under
the action of weight of the
retained earth (minus soil
pressure acting upwards
from below)
toe slab acts as a
cantilever under the action
of resulting soil pressure
acting upward.

Cantilever Wall
It resists the horizontal
earth pressure as well
as other vertical
pressure by way of
bending of various
components acting as
cantilevers
May be L shaped or T
shaped

Counterfort Wall
Stem and Heel slab are
strengthened by
providing counterforts at
some suitable intervals.
The stability of the wall is
maintained essentially
by the weight of the
earth on the heel slab
plus the self weight of
the structure.

Counterfort Wall
For large heights, in a
cantilever retaining wall,
the bending moments
developed in the stem,
heel slab and toe slab
become very large and
require large thickness.
The bending moments
can be considerably
reduced by introducing
transverse supports,
called counterforts.

Counterfort Wall
Counterfort wall are
placed at regular
intervals of about1/3 to
of the wall height,
interconnecting the
stem with the heel slab.
The counterforts are
concealed within the
retained earth on the
rear side of the wall.

Counterfort Wall
This wall is economical for
heights above
(approximately) 7m.
The counterforts
subdivide the vertical
slab (stem) into
rectangular panels and
support them on two
sides(suspender-style),
and themselves behave
essentially as vertical
cantilever beams of Tsection and varying
depth.

Buttress Wall
It is similar to counterfort wall, except
that the transverse stem supports,
Called buttress, are located in the
front side, interconnecting the stem
with the toe slab(and not with heel
slab, as with counterforts)

Buttress Wall
Although the buttresses are structurally
more efficient (and more economical)
counterforts, the counterfort wall is
generally preferred to the buttress wall as
it provides free usable space (and better
aesthetics)in front of the wall.

Lateral Earth pressure

The retaining force due to earth pressure
constitutes the main force acting on the retaining
wall, tending to make it bend , slide and
overturn.
Let pressure p increasing linearly with increasing
depth z below the surface:
P=Cez
Where e is the unit weight of the earth and C is
the coefficient that depends on its physical
properties and also on the pressure is active or
passive.

ACTIVE EARTH PRESSURE

Rankine's Theory

Assumptions
The soil mass is semi-infinite, homogeneous, dry and
cohesionless
The ground surface is plane which may be
horizontal or inclined.
The back of the wall is vertical and smooth(No
shearing stresses are developed between the wall
and soil).
The wall yields about the base and satisfies the
deformation conditions for plastic equilibrium.

Cohesionless Backfills

Dry or moist backfill with no surcharge

Submerged backfill
Backfill with uniform surcharge
Backfill with sloping surfaces

Dry or moist backfill with

no surcharge

Dry or moist backfill with

no surcharge (cont.)

Effect of surcharge on a
level backfill
Gravity loads act on a level backfill due to the
construction of buildings and the movement of
vehicles near the top of retaining wall.
These additional loads can be assumed to be static
and uniformly distributed on top of the backfill, for
calculation purpose.
This distributed load ws (kN/m2) can be treated as
statically equivalent to an additional(fictitious)
height hs=ws / e of soil backfill with unit weight v.
this additional height of backfill is called surcharge,
is expressed either in terms of heights hs or in terms
of the distributed load ws.

Submerged Backfill
In this case the sand fill behind the retaining wall is
saturated with water.

Submerged Backfill
Lateral pressure is made of two components Lateral Pressure due to water at depth h
Pa=Kah+wh

If the water stands to both sides of the wall, the water pressure
need not be considered & net lateral pressure is given by
Pa=Ka,H

Submerged Backfill

Backfill with Uniform

Surcharge

Backfill with Uniform

Surcharge
If the backfill is horizontal and carries surcharge of
uniform intensity w per unit area, the vertical
pressure increment at any depth h will increase by
w. The increase in the lateral pressure at any depth
h is given by,
Pa=Kah+Kaw
At the base of the wall, the pressure intensity is ,
Pa=KaH+Kaw

Backfill with Uniform

Surcharge

Backfill with sloping

Surface

=inclination of sloping surface behind the wall with

the horizontal
=Surcharge Angle

Backfill with sloping Surface

Assuming, vertical and horizontal stresses are
conjugate. It can be shown that if the stress on a
given plane at a given point is parallel to another
plane, the stress on the latter plane at the same
point must be parallel to the first plane

Backfill with Sloping Surface

Backfill with sloping Surface

Passive Earth Pressure

Passive earth pressure is exerted
on a wall when it has a
tendency to move towards the
backfill while supporting an
arch and is subjected to arch
thrust.
When Due to active pressure
from the right hand side, the
wall moves left. The soil to the
left is thus compressed and in
turn exert passive earth
pressure, resisting such
movement .

Passive Earth Pressure

Passive Earth Pressure

Stability of Cantilever
Retaining Wall

Methods of Failure of
retaining walls
Overturning about the toe
Sliding
failure of soil due to excessive pressure at toe or
tension at the heel
Bending failure of stem or base of slab or heel slab

Overturning about the toe

Overturning about the toe

Sliding

 If the wall is found to be unsafe against sliding ,

shear key below the base should be provided. Such
a key develops passive pressure which resists
completely the sliding tendency of the wall. A
factor of safety of 1.5 must be used against sliding.
In the absence of elaborate tests, the following
values of may be adopted:
Soil

Coarse grained soil without silt

0.55

Coarse grained soil with silt

0.45

Silt

0.35

Soil Pressure Distribution

Soil Pressure Distribution

Bending failure
The stem of T shaped
cantilever retaining wall will
bend as cantilever, so that
tensile face will be towards
the backfill.
The critical section will be at B,
where cracks may occur at
the inner face if it is not
properly reinforced. The heel
slab will have net pressure
acting downwards, and will
bend as cantilever, having
tensile face upwards.

Bending failure
The critical section at B, where cracks may occur if
it is not reinforced properly at the upper face.
The net pressure on toe slab will acts upwards, and
hence it must be reinforced at the bottom face.
The thickness of stem, heel slab and toe slab must
be sufficient to withstand compressive stresses due
to bending.

Design principles of
Cantilever Retaining Wall
The design of a cantilever retaining wall consist of
the following
1. Fixation of base width b
2. Design of stem
3. Design of heel slab
4. Design of toe slab

Fixation of base width b

The base width b of the
retaining wall should be so
chosen that the resultant of
the forces remain within
middle third, and the ratio
of length of toe slab to the
base width should be such
that the stress p1 at toe
does not exceed the safe
bearing capacity of soil.

Fixation of base width (b)

cont

Fixation of base width (b)

cont

Design of Stem

 Reinforcement is provided towards the inner face of

stem , i.e. towards side of fill. The reinforcement
towards the top of stem can curtailed since B.M.
varies as h3. Distribution reinforcement is provided
@0.15% of the area of cross section along the
length of retaining wall at inner face.
Similarly, at the outer face of the stem ,
temperature reinforcement is provided both in
horizontal as well as in vertical direction. At the rate
of 0.15% of the area of cross section.

Design of heel slab

The heel slab is also to be designed as a
cantilever . It has both downward pressure
(due to weight of soil and self weight )as well
as upward pressure due to soil reaction.
However , the net pressure is found to act
downward and hence reinforcement is
provided at the upper face BC.

Design of toe slab

Neglecting the weight of the soil
above it, the toe slab will bend
upwards as a cantilever due to
upward soil reaction. Hence
reinforcement is placed at the
bottom face.
Normally , the thickness of both toe
slab and heel slab is kept the same,
determined on the basis of greater of
the cantilever bending moments.

Depth of foundation