retaining wall

[casasf]

Can you provide some design aid references for:
1. Stacked Boulder retaining wall mortared, and
2. Railroad tie stacked retaining walls

If you have any reference guides for design please forward names and links.

Thank you in advance.

 

[oldestguy]

US Navy NAFAC DN-7 has some general guidance. Vulcan Hammer has this for free I think on his WEB site.

Boulder walls fall under the category of gravity walls. In those cases, assuming density of the wall is about like concrete, a rule of thumb design is that the wall, at least at base, is 1/3 the height dimension. I've cheated a little by making the boulder "pile" a rough triangle widest at the basse. In my experience this seems to work in quite a variety of cases. You can always do a stability analysis to check that out with circular failure surfaces assumed. On that same basis of analysis timber walls with anchorage ties probably can be done the same way, but the density of earth within the (secured) soil needs to be known. 100 PCF would be a safe density number for most soils.

 

[KootK]

For boulder's FWHA's guide for rockery walls may help: Link.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.