Gravity retaining wall - Design reference 16

[LR11]

I was wondering of there's a recommended reference for the design of gravity retaining walls.
I'm looking into the design of a limestone block wall between 1.5m to 2m above ground level.

 

[LR11]

The above is for a single block only. I can understand that.
Take the hypothetical case for three blocks.
The overturning restraint offered by three individual blocks is 3.Wi.T/2, where Wi is the individual weight and T is the thickness.
For a hypothetical single block, 3 times the width, the restraint is 3.Wi.3T/2 ... 3 times as much.
What I'm guessing is that the actual restraint is somewhere in between, because of the friction developed.

Is the normal practice to take each block as acting individually then?

With respect to the tiebacks, I don't believe they are actually used locally, I could be wrong though. Not sure if I mentioned, these are reconstituted limestone blocks, 0.35m x 0.35m in section, 1m long, plain faces (without keys/protrusions), soil is sand-clay profile typically.

 

[darthsoilsguy2]

Redi-Rock has some useful design tools. Their older manuals are more designer-friendly. A lot concrete suppliers in the NE USA stock forms for some type of Large Block Retaining Wall.

 

[LR11]

This is what is done locally.
The hatched blocks are in the transverse direction and are perhaps an interlocking mechanism.

 

[r13]

The wall is designed to match the backfill pressure, minimum on top, maximum at the bottom, with the transverse blocks, it forms a grid system, which is quite stable. A very pleasant and stable wall, just by eyeball it.

 

[LR11]

OK thanks for your comments.

 

[Settingsun]

For those walls that are several blocks wide in cross-section and which have no tension capacity between blocks, I've only ever seen checks of: friction at the various levels; and middle-third resultant location for full wall height required. But I've never been quite convinced this is sufficient for internal stability, ie no further checks required. Especially for irregular stone where the contact points between various stones may not be ideal from a theoretical perspective.

 

[LR11]

Thanks for commenting.
If block/block or block/soil friction coefficient was below 0.5, the shear stability would govern, regardless of assumptions. The friction values for block/block are above 0.5 from what I looked into last week, for limestone.
Not that I can't do the statics but I wanted to know what the tried and proven method was, with and without mortar. I don't have any knowledge either of experimental or factual evidence ... for that reason I wanted to see a How-To guide.