The HKIE Geotechnical Division Annual Seminar 2013

Some useful schemes for retaining wall design

for forming building platforms

Victor Li
Victor Li & Associates Ltd., Hong Kong
Edwin Chung
Black & Veatch Hong Kong Ltd., Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

The creation of large level platforms for building developments often call for construction of
retaining walls for supporting cut slopes or retaining soil backfill. Pile walls (such as bored pile
walls) or conventional reinforced concrete retaining walls are commonly used for this purpose.
Such design schemes are often costly because the mobilization of equipments for construction of
large-diameter pile wall on sloping ground is difficult if not infeasible. A large temporary cutting
or substantial shoring works may also be required for construction of a conventional retaining
wall. This paper discusses some cost effective design schemes of retaining walls. Case studies of
some recently completed retaining walls designed using such concepts are discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

Due to scarcity of land and the presence of hilly terrain in Hong Kong, retaining walls are often required for
supporting natural or man-made for creating flatter land for building and infrastructure developments.
Cantilever walls or L-shaped reinforced concrete retaining wall are commonly adopted for this purpose.
In the past, hand-dug caisson was a cost-effective way for forming cantilever retaining wall in hilly terrains
with difficult construction access. This construction method has practically been banned in Hong Kong since
1995 for health and safety reasons. Since then, large diameter bored pile walls have been adopted to replace
hand-dug caissons. Bored piling works involve heavy equipments. One or more steel temporary platforms
may be necessary for supporting the construction plants and crawler cranes for bored piling works on a slope.
Such temporary steel platforms are costly to construct and dismantle.
Some efficient and effective retaining wall designs as described in Figure 1 have been available for some
time although they are not common or have not yet been used in Hong Kong. They include retaining walls
with a sloping wall back (Figure 1a), the so-called wall-on-wall system (Figure 1b) and wall-slab system
(Figure 1c) (, 1980; , 1984; Li, 1990). A design concept of cantilever wall
with stabilizing base has been introduced by Carder et al. (1999) and Powrie et al. (1999) (Figure 1d). For the
wall-on-wall system in Figure 1b, a structural slab is provided behind the wall back of a gravity wall to
support the soils above it, producing two beneficial effects. First, the self-weight of the soil above the slab
produces a resisting moment to the wall. Second, the overburden pressure directly underneath the structural
slab is small (see Figure 1e) as the slab is supporting the self-weight of the soils above it. This leads to a local
reduction in earth pressure. As the shielding effect diminishes with depth, the reduction in earth pressure can
only occur over a certain depth below the structural slab as indicated in Figure 1b. The wall-slab system in
Figure 1c is an extension of the concept of a wall-on-wall system. The structural slab is extended to beyond
the failure plane of the active wedge. The structural slab completely supports the soils above the slab, leading
to a significant reduction in earth pressure all the way below the structural slab.
In the following, more detailed discussions will be presented for the two retaining wall schemes in Figure
1a and Figure 1d as the other two systems in Figure 1b & c have not yet been used in Hong Kong.

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Figure 1: Some efficient retaining wall design

2 RETAINING WALL WITH A SLOPING WALL BACK

Figure 2 shows the value of Ka for a retaining wall supporting a soil with angle of shearing resistance = 35o
and wall friction angle = 0. The inclination is defined as positive when the wall back leans backward. The
results in Figure 2 are obtained using the formula for Ka presented in Geoguide 1 (GEO, 1993) based on the
Coulombs method. It can be observed that the reduction of Ka with is significant, with Ka reducing from
0.25 for a vertical wall back to 0.126 for a steep wall back with a relatively small inclination of 25o.
The findings, as indicated by Figure 2, have been known for a long time and discussed in many
geotechnical textbooks. In fact, geotechnical engineers have made use of such a concept for decades for the
design of crib walls or perhaps for centuries for the design of slanted gravity walls (Figure 1a) for retaining fill
platforms or protection of a steep cut slopes.
Sometimes, a vertical or near-vertical wall face may be preferred to a slanted retaining wall to maximize the
usable space above the wall top. This is often the case for road widening works where additional traffic lanes
are to be provided above and in front of the wall. A gravity wall with a constant inclination of wall back as
indicated in Figure 3a may not be economical due to the large cross sectional area and hence material cost.
Earth pressure increases with overburden pressure and depth. The total reduction in earth pressure will be
more significant when the reduced Ka occurs at a lower depth. For this reason, the wall geometry in Figure 3b
is more efficient as it reduces the cross sectional area of the retaining wall. A sloping back leaning backward is

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provided at the lower portion of the wall to take advantage of a larger reduction in earth pressure. A vertical or
forward leaning wall back is adopted for the top part of the wall to reduce the cross sectional area even if it
will slightly increase the earth pressure.
0.4
Coefficient of active pressure

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
20 0 20 40 60

Inclination of wall back (deg)

Figure 2: Variation of Ka with inclination of wall back

Figure 3: Retaining wall with non-uniform sloping wall back

To further reduce the volume of concrete, the base width can be reduced as shown in Figure 4a. In doing so,
the bearing stress will increase and the factor of safety against bearing failure may not be adequate. An
extended reinforced concrete toe may need to be provided to enhance the bearing capacity. To reduce the
material cost even further, reinforced concrete wall base and wall back can be used as shown in Figure 4b. A
cross wall can be provided at suitable spacing to reduce the bending moment on the wall stem, wall base and
wall back, but it will make the backfilling process more difficult. The wall geometry as shown in Figure 4
looks like a goose and such a retaining wall has often been dubbed the goose shaped wall.
Figure 5 shows some examples completed goose shaped walls that have been used in several road widening
projects in Hong Kong. All the walls in Figure 5 need to support a sizeable noise barrier above the wall stem.
Therefore, those retaining walls need to resist wind moment in addition to soil pressure. Figure 6a shows a
photograph of a goose shaped wall under construction and Figure 6b the completed wall. The slope behind the
wall in Figure 6a is a soil nailed cutting.

Figure 4: Variation of retaining wall geometry with sloping wall back

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The HKIE Geotechnical Division Annual Seminar 2013 .

Figure 5: Examples of goose shaped wall used in Hong Kong

(a) under construction (b) completed wall

Figure 6: Photographs of a goose shaped wall

It may be argued that a goose shaped wall is not an efficient wall system in terms of the total volume of
concrete used. The greatest benefit of a goose shaped wall often comes from the reduced cost of shoring works
and not the material costs, especially when a retaining wall is needed for supporting an existing slope or when
there is a restriction on the extent of temporary slope cutting. A goose shaped wall has a narrower base in
comparison. It can often be constructed much more economically using a soil-nailed cutting (Figure 7b). For
an L-shaped retaining wall, the extent of a soil nailed cutting will be larger due to its wider base. If there is a
restriction on the extent of slope cutting, one may have to resort to a strutted or tied-back embedded wall for
constructing the L-shaped wall (see Figure 7a). In Hong Kong, only passive soil nails are allowed for
permanent works. Although soil nails are often used for supporting the temporary cutting for construction of
goose shaped walls, such active soil nails cannot be relied upon for enhancing the wall stability. An alternative
is to install additional soil nails after the cutting has been formed. The additional soil nails can be integrated
with the retaining wall as indicated in Figure 7c. As long as the goose shaped wall is designed to factors of
safety larger than one against sliding and overturning, the additional soil nails can remain passive during their
working life. If this design concept can be accepted, the size of the goose shaped wall and also the extent of
soil cutting can be substantially reduced.

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Figure 7: Construction of retaining wall

3 CANTILEVER RETAINING WALL WITH STABILIZING BASE

As the height of the retaining wall increases, the goose shaped retaining wall may no longer be efficient or
practicable, unless the concept of passive soil nails as described in Figure 7c can be accepted. It is because the
goose shaped wall may become too massive and the required extent of temporary slope cutting too large to be
economical. Under this situation, designers often resort to a cantilever wall formed by large diameter bored
piles because the design work for a cantilever wall is extremely simple. Such retaining walls are, however,
nightmares for the contractor if there are to be constructed on an existing slope.
The concept of a cantilever wall with a stabilizing wall base as discussed in Figure 1d offers an alternative
to purely cantilever bored pile walls as the size of the cantilever wall can be reduced with the help of a
stabilizing base. In this system, the soil reaction from the stabilizing base will provide a resisting moment to
enhance the overturning stability of the cantilever wall and the passive soil resistance on the cantilever wall
contributes to increasing the sliding stability of the wall. While the concept is attractive, the difficulties lie in
developing a suitable method for temporary support of the cantilever wall before constructing the stabilizing
base and designing suitable details for connecting the stabilizing base to the cantilever wall. If large diameter
bored piles are still used for the cantilever wall, the advantage of this concept will be lost.
Li (2012) has recently suggested a modification to the concept of the cantilever retaining wall with a
stabilizing base as illustrated in Figure 8.
A steel soldier pile wall can be constructed initially for supporting the excavation. The soldier piles can be
supported by raking struts or tie-backs as indicated in Figure 8a. The installation of steel soldier piles requires
much lighter or smaller equipment and a steel temporary platform may not be necessary for constructing the
soldier piles on sloping ground. Once the excavation in front of the steel soldier piles is completed, a
reinforced concrete reversed L-shaped retaining wall can be built to integrate with the soldier pile wall to form
a composite cantilever retaining wall with a stabilizing base (Figure 8b). To ensure that the soldier pile and the
reinforced concrete retaining wall can work effectively as a whole, shear studs or reinforcement need to be
provided between the wall stem and the soldier piles to resist the interface shear forces and tension. The
concept of integrating passive soil nails with the retaining wall as discussed earlier for the goose shaped wall
should also be useful for reducing the size of the reversed L-shaped retaining wall.
The design concept illustrated in Figure 8 has recently been adopted to replace a 3m diameter bored pile
wall for supporting a major slope with a retaining height exceeding 20m. No steel platform was necessary for
constructing the composite wall. Figure 9a shows a close-up view of the tied-back soldier piles with shear
studs installed. Figure 9b is a panoramic view of the completed excavation in front of the soldier piles and
Figure 9c shows the completed cantilever wall with the stabilizing base buried in the soils.

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The HKIE Geotechnical Division Annual Seminar 2013 .

Figure 8: A modified concept of cantilever retaining wall with stabilizing base

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 9: Photographs of a retaining wall with stabilizing base

4 DISCUSSIONS

The retaining wall systems discussed in this paper are not new. They have been described in geotechnical
textbooks published in the mainland China in the early 1980s or perhaps even earlier. The concept and case
history of a cantilever retaining wall with stabilizing wall base were published 14 years ago by Carder et al.
(1999) and Powrie et al. (1999). As discussed by Li & Lo (2008), engineers are usually conservative and
prefer to be followers rather than pioneers. By showing that some of the more efficient retaining wall systems
described in Figure 1 have actually been used successfully in civil engineering projects in Hong Kong, it is
hoped that the concepts discussed in this paper can be adopted more widely for economical design of retaining
wall for infrastructure and building developments.

REFERENCES

Carder, D.R., Watson, G. V.R., Chandler, R.J. and Powrie, W. 1999. Long-term performance of an embedded
wall with a stabilizing wall base, Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers Geotechnical Engineering, 137,
April, 63-74.
Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO), 1993. Geoguide 1 Guide to Retaining Wall Design.
Li, K.S. 1990. Discussion on Retaining walls with sloped heel, Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE,
116(12):1908-1909.
Li, Victor 2012. Some useful retaining wall options for road widening works, Bridging Research & Practice
the VLA Experience, Vol.2, Centre for Research & Professional Development, 163-174.
Li, Victor and Lo, S-C. 2008. Obstacles to innovative technologies in geotechnical works in Hong Kong,
Proceedings of HKIE Geotechnical Division Annual Seminar on Applications of Innovative Technologies in
Geotechnical Works, 191-195.
Powrie, W., Chandler, R.J., Carder, D.R. and Watson, G.V.R. 1999. Back-analysis of an embedded retaining
wall with a stabilizing base slab, Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers Geotechnical Engineering, 137,
April, 75-86.
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