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 as these are relatively straight forward. They are also covered extensively in texts and most importantly there is a a general consensus on how to evaluate the resulting lateral pressure. We will also provide some spreadsheets and written examples. We will also try a few video tutorials as well.

Upcoming Topics:

  1. We will first cover the basics of a uniform surcharge. Generally Fq=Ka*q*H.
  2. Elastic Methods – Point Load, Line Load, Strip Load, Area Load, with spreadsheet.
  3. Other approximate methods
  4. What is appropriate and when

 




Thoughts? Comments? Questions?