Retaining wall in front of a vertical rock surface-Lateral Pressure?
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Question

Retaining wall in front of a vertical rock surface-Lateral Pressure?

IJR (Structural)

(OP)

20 Feb 17 08:45

The rock is tall (50ft, 17m)and is cut almost vertically. From rockface to wall the clearance is less than 2ft(0.60m). Sure there will be a cohesionless fill there. Does this slim fill qualify to cause lateral pressure? If yes, where is the failure plane and how can Coulomb procedure work here?

Thanks in advance.

ijr

DTrisler (Geotechnical) · Answer 1 · 2017-02-20 19:20:17

The short answer is yes there will be lateral pressure, but likely reduced. Here are several papers that should help:

Frydman, Sam and Keissar, Israel (1987), "Earth pressure on retaining walls near rock faces," Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 113, No. 6, June, pp. 586-599.

Lawson, C. R., and Yee, T. W. (2005), "Reinforced soil retaining walls with constrained reinforced fill zones," Proceedings, Geo-Frontiers 2005, ASCE Geo-Institute Conference.

Leshchinsky, Dov, and Hu, Yuhui (2003), "Design implications of limited reinforced zone space in SRW's," Proceedings of the 17th GRI Conference

Kuo-Hsin Yang and J. G. Zornberg, The Coefficient of Earth Pressure on Retaining Walls Placed in Front of a Stable Face with Limited Space; Research paper at University of Texas, sponsored by Texas DOT.

Kuo-Hsin Yang; Jianye Ching;and Jorge G. Zornberg, "Reliability-Based Design for External Stability of Narrow Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls: Calibration from Centrifuge Tests", JOURNAL OF GEOTECHNICAL AND GEOENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, ASCE / MARCH 2011 / 239

Doctormo (Geotechnical) · Answer 2 · 2017-02-20 22:20:20

Soil Engineering, Spangler & Handy, 4th edition has a few pages on this situation. Can get a little tricky in a seismic zone.

miningman (Mining) · Answer 3 · 2017-02-21 17:29:48

Do you have access to photos of the rock face providing at least initial rock mapping ability?? Was the face re-inforced with rock bolts prior to construction of the retaining wall?? Maybe I'm wrong but without this data I cant see how anyone can predict the location of the likely potential failure planes

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Retaining wall in front of a vertical rock surface-Lateral Pressure?
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