Restrained Retaining Wall Design

Retaining structures hold back soil or other loose material where an abrupt change in ground elevation occurs. The retained material or backfill exerts a push on the structure and thus tends to overturn or slide it, or both. Sometimes the movement of the wall is restrained at the top, as in a basement. In such a wall, the overturning is prevented. The stem acts as a fix-pin beam, and the heel and toe of such a wall act as cantilever beams. The backfill pressure is generally the At-rest condition, rather than the Active condition.

The design involves two major steps: the first one is the evaluation of the stability of the whole structure under the service loads, which includes the settlement and sliding failure modes, and the second one is the design of the different components, such as the stem, heel, toe and key, for bending and shear, under the combined factored loads.

The program computes the soil bearing pressures and analyzes the stability of the structure. In addition, it performs the concrete design based on the Ultimate Strength Design Method of the ACI 318. The lateral pressures are calculated either per the At-rest, Rankine, Coulomb or Equivalent Fluid theories. Seismic design of the backfill and water table. Load combinations per the latest IBC / ASCE 7.

Input Data

The input data required includes the geometry of the backfill, stem, toe, heel and key. In addition, the program accepts a number of load cases, such as surcharge (uniform and/or concentrated), wind and seismic. The reinforcing steel may be specified and customized using multiple options.

Example

As an example, consider a retaining wall with a 17-ft high stem that holds a 16-ft high backfill, which is leveled. Apply a uniform surcharge of 200 psf. The wall is exposed to a wind load of 30 psf and it's located in a seismic zone where kh = 0.20. The allowable soil bearing pressure is 4.0 ksf.

Design the retaining wall for a minimum sliding safety factor of 1.5. In addition, find the steel reinforcement to satisfy the requirements of the controlling load combinations.

Output

The program checks the wall stability for the service combined loads and performs the concrete design of the stem, toe, heel and key for the factored combined loads. In each case the controlling load combination is identified and reported.

A detailed step-by-step report is available to the touch of a tab, which is updated with every new change. In addition, ASDIP Retain uses a pre-formated colorful text-with-values output for easier identification of the problem areas.

ASDIP Retain generates a graphical view of the designed retaining wall and the resulting pressures and forces, as shown. The program also generates the moment and the shear diagrams for the controlling combination, as well as a view of the construction section and elevation with the reinforcement information.

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