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Reinforced Concrete Design-II

Lec-3

Retaining walls

By
Dr. Attaullah Shah

Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Wah Cantt.

Purposes of Retaining walls

Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to unnatural slopes.
They are used to bound soils between two different elevations often in areas of terrain possessing undesirable slopes or in areas where the landscape needs to be shaped severely and engineered for more specific purposes like hillside farming or roadway overpasses.

Types of Retaining walls

Gravity walls depend on their mass (stone, concrete or other heavy material) to resist pressure from behind and may have a 'batter' setback to improve stability by leaning back toward the retained soil. For short landscaping walls, they are often made from mortarless stone or segmental concrete units (masonry units).

 Cantilevered retaining wall:

Cantilevered retaining walls are made from an internal stem of steel-reinforced, cast-in-place concrete or mortared masonry (often in the shape of an inverted T). These walls cantilever loads (like a beam) to a large, structural footing, converting horizontal pressures from behind the wall to vertical pressures on the ground below. Sometimes cantilevered walls are buttressed on the front, or include a counter fort on the back, to improve their strength resisting high loads. Buttresses are short wing walls at right angles to the main trend of the wall. These walls require rigid concrete footings below seasonal frost depth. This type of wall uses much less material than a traditional gravity wall.

Drainage of Retaining walls

Sheet piling

Sheet pile retaining walls are usually used in soft soils and tight spaces. Sheet pile walls are made out of steel, vinyl or wood planks which are driven into the ground. For a quick estimate the material is usually driven 1/3 above ground, 2/3 below ground, but this may be altered depending on the environment. Taller sheet pile walls will need a tie-back anchor, or "dead-man" placed in the soil a distance behind the face of the wall, that is tied to the wall, usually by a cable or a rod. Anchors are then placed behind the potential failure plane in the soil.

Bearing Pressure under footings

Allowable soil pressure for various soils

One way shear or beam shear

Shear in Footings

Single Column Footings

Design of isolated column footing

Design of Rectangular isolated column footings

The rectangular columns are provided with rectangular column The design procedure of rectangular column is the same as square footing One way shear normally control the depth of footing

Design of Wall footing

Combined Footings

Assignment No.2
1. Design a 9 in wide wall footing to carry a uniformly distributed load of D=5k/ft L=3K/ft. The bearing capacity of soil is 1.5t/sqft fc =3000 psi fy= 60,000 psi. The depth of foundation is 4 ft and the weight of backfilling is 110 lbs/sqft

2. Design and square 12in x12 in column footing to carry a Dead load 150K and Live load of 100K. The soil is sandy clay. fc =3000 psi fy= 60,000 psi. The soil depth is required at 5 feet.
3. Design a rectangular footing for the column 12inx18in with the above data.

4. Design a combined footing for the following data:

- Column 1: D=200K and L=100K - Column 2: D= 150K and L= 75K

- Soil bearing capacity: 5k/sq ft depth of foundation: 5 ft and soil unit weight: 110 lbs/sqft