RETAINING WALL

-Analysis And Design

By SAP 2000
 Contents

Introduction
Types Of Retaining Wall
Modes Of Failure
 What is a Retaining wall?
A retaining wall is a structure that holds or
retains soil behind it and is used for
maintaining the ground surfaces at
different elevations on either side of it.

There are many types of materials that can

be used to create retaining walls like
concrete blocks, poured concrete, treated
timbers, rocks or boulders

Retaining walls provide lateral support to

vertical slopes of soil. They retain soil
which would otherwise collapse into a
more natural shape. The retained soil is
referred to as backfill.
Parts Of Retaining Wall
 Types of Retaining walls
On the basis of shape & mode of resisting pressure
due to backfill.

1. Gravity retaining wall

2. Semi-Gravity retaining wall
3. Cantilever retaining wall
4. Buttress wall
1. GRAVITY RETAINING WALL
The gravity wall resists the earths
pressure exerted by backfill by its
own self weight (dead load).
It is usually built in stone masonry,
and occasionally in plain concrete

2. SEMI GRAVITY RETAINING WALLS

Semi-gravity walls resist external forces
by the combined action of self weight,
weight of soil above footing and the
flexural resistance of the wall
components
Reinforcements are provided to resist
moments generated by backfill materials.
3. CANTILEVERED RETAINING WALLS
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.

4. COUNTERFORT RETAINING WALLS

The bending moments can be

considerably reduced by introducing
transverse supports, called counter-
forts.
5. 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)
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.
MODES OF FAILURE
There are 5 types of modes of failure
1. SLIDING FAILURE
Sliding failure is nothing but sliding of wall away from
backfill when there is shearing failure at the base of wall.

The Factor of safety against sliding is,

< 1.5

where,
= coefficient of friction = tan

= vertical & horizontal components of

resultant R of weight of wall & earth pressure
2. OVERTURNING FAILURE
Overturning failure is rotation of wall about its toe due
to exceeding of moment caused due to overturning
forces to resisting forces.
The Factor of safety against overturning is given by,

< 1.5 - 2.0

where,
= sum of resisting moment about toe

= sum of overturning moment about toe

3. BEARING CAPACITY FAILURE
The pressure exerted by resultant vertical force at toe
of wall must no exceed the allowable bearing capacity
of the soil.

The pressure distribution is assumed to be linear.

The maximum pressure is given by,

The Factor of safety against bearing failure is,

< 3.0
where,
= allowable bearing pressure