Retaining Wall with Pressure Relief Shelves

[EngInternational]

Some questions concerning Retaining Walls with Relief Shelves:

I have a very old engineering book that describes relief arches behind retaining walls, but that seems quite different.

Does anyone have any experience designing retaining walls with relief shelves and be willing to share their thoughts on this type of construction? Specifically, is there a good reference for the design procedure and theory? Practically speaking, is this type of wall advisable? Do construction difficulties out way material savings? How is drainage behind the wall dealt with?


Thanks in advance for your time and replies.

 

[BUGGAR]

Not sure what you mean (pictures or drawings are nice). I've worked on waterfront seawalls with relieving platforms(to reduce lateral soil pressure). Is that what you mean? You can see how these work when you see the lateral soil pressure diagrams.

 

[moe333]

The foundation engineering text by Varghese (sp?) has a section on this topic.