CE8703 STRUCTURAL DESIGN
AND DRAWING
UNIT I RETAINING WALLS
Reinforced concrete Cantilever and Counter
fort Retaining Walls
–Horizontal Backfill with Surcharge–Design of Shear
Key-Design and Drawing.
RETAINING WALL
•The retaining walls are structures used to provide
stability of earth masses (or) other loose materials
•when field condition do not allow the earth masses
to assume its natural slope(or)shape (or)when
abrupt changes in the ground surface elevation are
needed.
APPLICATION OF RETAINING WALL
• Retaining a rail-road (or) a highway in a hilly areas.
• For underground water tanks.
• Depressed roads
• Elevated roads
• Erosion protection
• Flood wall
• Box culvert
• Basement wall
The retaining wall are usually made up of
• stone masonry,
• mass concrete
• reinforced cement concrete.
TYPES OF RETAINING WALL
• Gravity Retaining wall
• Cantilever Retaining wall
• Counterfort retaining wall.
• Buttress wall Retaining Wall
• Bridge abutment
GRAVITY RETAINING WALL
GRAVITY RETAINING WALL
• Gravity Retaining wall retains earth (or) other
materials entirely by its own weight and generally
contains no reinforcement. Gravitational walls are
bulky and made of bricks, stone or concrete
masonry.
• Gravity walls are generally trapezoidal in section. A
mild taper is given on the earth side to improve the
stability. A key in the stem & base are provided in
order to resist the shear.
GRAVITY RETAINING WALL
• Gravity wall are recommended when a high degree of
performance under unfavourable climatic environment
exists.
• A semi-gravity walls is also in use which is slender and
the wall are provided with since reinforcement in the
face of wall contact with the soil.
• The exposed face is provided with Nominal
Reinforcement to prevent the surface Cracking.
CANTILEVER RETAINING WALL
CANTILEVER RETAINING WALL
• Cantilever Retaining wall is a Reinforced concrete wall
which consists of vertical arm that retains the earth
and is held in position by a footing base slab.
• Here the weight of the fill material on the top of the
heel, in addition to weight of wall contributes to the
stability of the structure.
• The thin stem and base slab are fully reinforced to
resist the moment and shear.
CANTILEVER RETAINING WALL
• For a clean sand (or) gravel the Ratio of
Base(B)/Height(H) is less. In case of weak foundation
soil, backfill sloping (or) backfill is of cohesive material,
then B/H Ratio should be adopted higher.
• The base Width should be adequate such that the
resultant force should fall within of base.
• The Cantilever Retaining wall is usually adopted to
height of 6m.
COUNTERFORT RETAINING WALL
COUNTERFORT RETAINING WALL
• In the Wall greater than 6m height bending moment in
the vertical wall occurs, which is very high.
• Inorder to reduce the bending moment, wall
perpendicular the stem are provided at a specific
spacing which are called as Counterforts.
• These Counterforts are placed in the backfill side and
space between counterforts are filled with backfills and
thus it is subjected to tensile forces.
COUNTERFORT RETAINING WALL
• The counterforts are not provided at the ends. The
unsupported end part is 0.41L generally, where L is the
spacing between the counterforts.
• When the counterforts are placed on the exposed face of
the wall and not on the backfill side it is called Buttressed
Retaining wall. Buttress Reduce the clearance in front of
the wall.
• In this case the counterforts are subjected to compression.
BUTTRESS WALL RETAINING WALL
Transverse stem support provided
on front side
PARTS OF A BRIDGE
BRIDGE ABUTMENTS
PARTS OF A RETAINING WALL
VARIOUS FORCES SUBJECTED TO A
CANTILEVER RETAINING WALL
• Earth pressure due to backfill
• Vertical forces including weight of soil, stem, heel,
toe, and soil fill above the toe.
• The soil pressure developed to resist the earth
pressure and other vertical forces acting on
the heel and toe.
LATERAL PRESSURE
• If the Retaining wall is built in contact with solid
surface such as rock face, No pressure is
exerted.
• Instead if wall is built to retain water (or) oil (or)
any other liquid Retaining structure, then
Hydrostatic Pressure is exerted on a wall in case
of liquid, (or)
• earth pressure in case of soil Retaining wall.
LATERAL EARTH PRESSURE
• If a Vertical Retaining wall retains soil the later earth
pressure Ph increases proportionally with the depth whose
magnitude is,
Ph=k0 γh
• Where γ = unit Weight of soil N/m3
• h = height from the top.
• k0= Coefficient of earth pressure at rest.
In General,
• For Cohesive Soils => K0 = 0.7 to 1.0
• For Non- Cohesive Soils => K0 = 0.4 to 0.8
ACTIVE EARTH PRESSURE
• If the Retaining wall moves away from the
backfill a sliding plane forms in the soil mass.
• The inclination of the sliding plane is
[45o + ɸ/2],
Where ɸ=angle of internal friction.
And the pressure exerted on the wall is known
as ACTIVE EARTH PRESSURE.
PASSIVE EARTH PRESSURE
• If the Retaining wall pushed against the
backfill a sliding plane is formed and inclined
at [45o - ɸ/2] to the horizontal.
• The soil wedge is pushed upwards by the wall
along the plane.
EARTH PRESSURE FOR COMMON
CONDITION OF LOADING
There are 4 common conditions of loading,
1. Horizontal surface of fill at the top of the wall
2. Inclined surface of fill sloping up
3. Horizontal surface of fill carrying UDL(surcharge)
4. Backfill is saturated by ground water.
FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED WHILE
DESIGNING THE RETAINING WALLS
a)Safety against Overturning
b) Safety against Sliding
c) The soil on which the wall rests mustn’t be
overloaded
d) The materials used in construction are not
overstressed.
STABILITIES HAS TO BE CHECKED,
DESIGNING RETAINING WALLS
(a) Stability against over turning
(b) Stability against sliding
(c) Stability of foundation base
SURCHARGE
SLIDING
• The backfill exerts a lateral pressure against the wall.
• This sliding force is resisted by the friction between
the underlying soil and the footing, and by the
passive pressure at the front of the wall.
• When more sliding resistance is required, a shear key
may be provided.
• The factor of safety against sliding equals the
resisting force divided by the driving force, and the
minimum value should be 1.50.
OVERTURNING
• The overturning moment from the applied forces
must be resisted by an opposite moment produced
by the vertical forces, including the wall selfweight
and the weight of the backfill over the heel.
• The factor of safety against overturning is defined
as the resisting moment divided by the overturning
moment, and the minimum value should be 1.50.
SOIL BEARING
• The allowable soil bearing pressure should be
provided by the soils report, which already
includes a safety factor of about 3.0.
• The resultant of the bearing pressure should
fall within the middle third to avoid negative
soil pressures at the heel.
Wing wall
