Effective Length of Walls

[HighPanda]

I am designing a concrete wall (of just 5m height) to support a staircase taking pedestrians to a footbridge.

At one end of the wall, it is connected to another concrete wall or a cross wall. From this connection, I believe a certain length of the wall (supporting the staircase) next to the cross wall wouldn’t buckle because the cross wall restrains the wall under consideration from moving. If the wall is very long, say 20m, another end of the wall is not restrained by any structure and it will behaves like a cantilever wall and the effective length may be 2 x physical length.

My question is that: one end is restrained and another end is free, is there cut off point beyond which the wall is considered as a free cantilever????

 

[LobstaEata]

Here's my take.

If reinforcement is neglected, the influence of an intersecting unreinforced wall would be limited to a 45 degree failure plane. Therefore, a 5m restraint height would translate into 5m of howizontal influence along the wall until an unreinforced wall would be considered fully cantilevered.

When reinforcement is included, the length of influence of the intersecting wall may be extended somewhat, due to shear friction of the reinforcement. How much further do you ask? Now that would be a good question.