I'm charged with making a few modifications to an existing 2-story commercial building comprised of loadbearing AAC block walls and precast AAC floor and roof panels. The owner would like to add a few passthrough interior door and window openings. Nothing extreme - maybe 4 to 6 foot wide...
Most (maybe all) the references I've seen for design of cantilevered retaining walls show the stabilizing effect of the weight of soil behind the wall based on a straight vertical extrusion of the heel width. E.g., if the heel width is 4 feet, the stabilizing weight of soil behind the wall is...
In several software packages for the design of cantilevered retaining walls, there's an option to "neglect bearing at heel," for purposes of computing the critical moment and shear at the heel of the footing. My understanding is that it's conservative to neglect the upward bearing pressure at...
I'd like to use gypsum-weight concrete (gypcrete) to build up staged seating tiers in an existing building. The tiers will be 3 inches high each. I'd like to use gypcrete at around 40 PCF density to limit the superimposed load on the existing structure. I'll cover the tiers with carpet. Just...
I first posted this message in the Demolition & Renovation forum, but thought I might a better reponse in this forum. Sorry for duplicating posts.
I'm a newly professional engineer working for a large structural engineering company. Occasionally I've had friends and architects (that I trust)...
