Retaining walls with relief shelves

Abstract

Cantilever retaining wall with pressure relief shelves is considered as a special type of retaining wall. The concept of providing pressure relief shelves on the backfill side of a retaining wall reduces the total earth pressure on the wall, which results in a reduced thickness of the wall and ultimately in an economic design of a cantilever wall. A limited number of solutions and measurements can be found for this type of wall in the literature. The shapes of the measured earth pressure distributions differ among studies because the model scales were different; for example, the wall during one measurement was permitted to move but was not permitted to move in the other measurements. This paper presents a Finite Element analysis of this type of wall using PLAX-IS2D-AE.01. The reduced total active earth pressure due to the provisioning of shelves is depicted. It was found that the shelves had a significant effect on the resulting earth pressure distribution. The distribution approximately followed the distribution of the solution by Klein (Calculation of retaining walls (in Russian). Vysshaya Shkola, Moscow, 2014). It also followed the shape of the measurements of Yakovlev (Experimental investigation of earth pressure on walls with two platforms in the case of breaking loads relieving on the backfill. Odessa Institute of Naval Engineers, pp 7-9, 1974). A parametric study was conducted to enable a discussion of the effects of the number of shelves, shelf rigidity, and shelf position on the resulting distribution of the lateral earth pressure, wall top movement, and acting maximum flexural moment of the wall. For high retaining walls and for some repair systems for constructed walls that have problems with stability, it is recommended to provide the cantilever wall with a shelf at a third of the wall height from the top of the wall or more shelves at different levels. Suggested updates are provided to enhance the manual solution of Klein in the calculation of the acting maximum bending moment of the wall. Keywords Special retaining structures Á Relief shelves Á Earth pressure Á Repair Á Maximum moment Á High retaining walls

Typology Selection of Retaining Walls Based on Multicriteria Decision-Making Methods

“…This reduces the volume of concrete and steel reinforcement in the wall significantly, thus its construction is relatively fast speed. Retaining walls with relief shelves can be considered as a special type of retaining wall [11].…”

A method developed to calculate lateral earth pressure on a sheet pile wall with counterforts

“…To study the joint effect of the soil backfill and the construction, numerical calculation models [8] are developed and approaches for optimal design are sought [9]. In order to reduce earth pressure on the retaining wall, various relief devices are offered, such as horizontal shelves located on the backfill side [10,11] or a relief platform [12].…”

“…As a result of equating the right-hand sides of equations (17) and (19), a relationship is established between the vertical stresses and the horizontal pressure (10), where…”

Optimization of Stabilizing Systems in Protection of Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Historical Retaining Wall in the Wisłoujście Fortress

“…The application of ground anchors is reviewed, for example, in [34][35][36]. The possible uses of relieving shelves are outlined, among others, in [37,38] and those of CFA (continuous flight augering) piling in [39]. The functioning of buttresses is reviewed in [40], while the utility of widening the wall base is considered, for instance, in [41,42].…”