×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Temporary Retaining Wall

Temporary Retaining Wall

Temporary Retaining Wall

(OP)
Hi

I have a situation with a house being constructed on a hillside. The front foundation wall will be 10 feet above the ground and we will be filling behind this wall. The fill is not to be compacted and will serve as the formwork for the floor slab which will restrain the top of the wall. My question is what guidelines should I use in a situation where the foundation wall will function as a retaining wall only temporarily until the floor slab is in place?

I was thinking of reducing the unit weight of the fill to probably 90lbs/ft3, keeping the friction angle at 30-32 degrees but lowering my factor of safety for Overturning to 1.3. Does this sound reasonable?

Thanks

RE: Temporary Retaining Wall

Is the first floor a ground supported slab?  If so, you should probably compact the fill so that it can provide adequate slab support.

Also, I'm sure you realize that the wall will have lateral pressure on it after the floor slab is in place, and that those at-rest pressures will be higher than the active pressures for the retaining wall.  

You need to provide some more information about the soil type, but the low unit weight and relatively high friction angle don't seem right for uncompacted soil.

RE: Temporary Retaining Wall

Bad idea, design for compacted fill behind your wall.  This may never happen, but if it does, the repair costs will be many hundreds times greater than the initial difference in cost.

RE: Temporary Retaining Wall

Civilperson is correct.

If you "take a chance" with a conventional poured concrete wall that has "set up" some, it may fail.  Who will take that blame?

However, I have seen this done (no design)for a wall about12 feet high.  The darn thing worked.  5 years later it still is there, but I didn't get involved with it.

Through the years, I have seen may dumb things that "got by", so who is to know yes or no for sure that your plan won't work.  It all depends on how much of a gambler you are, I suppose.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources