Stable Feature Behind MSE Wall / Narrow Wall This will be one of several posts regarding MSE walls with complex geometry. The main references for this post and the posts to follow will be the research conducted by The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and mainly…
Category: Earth Retention
Design of segmental retaining walls, cast-in-place, soilder pile and lagging, sheet pile, MSE and other earth retention systems. Also understanding surcharges and lateral pressures.
Surcharge Analysis – Elastic Methods – Strip Load
Strip Load Surcharge Analysis using Elastic Methods UPDATED – Problem Solved… Here we will dig deeper into analyzing strip loads with elastic methods. First to avoid confusion between seeing similar equations which use different reference angles, we will set our own nomenclature.…
Surcharge Analysis – Elastic Methods
Analysis of Offset Surcharges on Retaining Walls Using Elastic Methods Offset surcharges are always up for some debate. Which method to use? What is the line of influence? Is the wall flexible or rigid? Well in this segment we will…
Trial Wedge Analysis
Trial Wedge Method Update: I will be updating this post or possibly creating a new post that demonstrates a simpler, clearer way to implement the trial wedge method. It should be completed by 2013/2/17. Update: I realized a couple of…
Lateral Earth Pressure II
This post is an extension of a previous post https://howtoengineer.com/retaining-wall-lateral-earth-pressure/ The spreadsheet will use the nomeclature found in NCMA’s Design Manual for Segmental Retaining Walls and Coulomb Theory. See here: Lateral Earth Pressure – Soil Basic 1 Geometry Sketch Also here is a…
Soldier Pile w/ Tieback Design
This is a short post in which I will elaborte on at some point in the future. I am attaching a pdf of a TEDDS calculation that is based on the 1990 California Trenching and Shoring. The design concept is similiar…
Cantilever Soldier Pile Wall Design
Cantilevered Solider Pile Retaining Wall Design I have attached a pdf showing the basics of designing a cantilevered solider pile retaining wall. It is largely based on the California Trenching and Shoring manual. The California trenching and shoring manual is a great design reference for earth retention. However…
Retaining Wall – Lateral Earth Pressure
Retaining Wall – Lateral Earth Pressure Update: For spreadsheets and more examples of calculating active and passive pressures see Lateral Earth Pressure II We will briefly discuss lateral earth pressure caused by soil weight and ground water effects. I’m not going to…
General Earth Retention Design
Just like any other engineering problem it is wise to start with a free body diagram. This will help you get a feel for the loads and what we need to do to resist them. Then next thing is to…
Retaining Wall Offset Surcharges
Offset surcharges have provided me with some of my largest learning hurdles as a young engineer. We will spend some time discussing different design options when faced with an offset surcharge. We will not spend much time on uniform surcharges…