Chapter Eight

Earth
Retaining
Structures
BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining
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 Learning outcomes:
 Upon completing the study of this chapter,
students are able to:

1. Identify various types of retaining wall

systems;
2. analyse and design common retaining wall
systems.

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 Introduction
 Retaining walls (also known as earth retaining structures)
are vertical or near-vertical walls that retain soil or rock
(Cudoto 1999). The purpose of a retaining wall is to
resist the forces exerted by the retained soil or rock and
to safely transmit these forces to the foundation.
 The retaining wall is designed for both strength and
deformation (including movement of the wall). It is
important to note that the cost of constructing a
retaining wall is high; therefore, it would be appropriate
to consider forming a new slope rather than building a
wall if it is feasible.
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 A retaining wall must fulfil fundamental requirements of
stability, stiffness, durability, etc during construction and
throughout its design life (GEOGUIDE 1). In terms of limit
states design, two limit states must be considered in the
design, namely, the ultimate limit state and the
serviceability limit state.
 According to GEOGUIDE 1, the ultimate limit state is
defined as the state at which a failure mechanism can
form in the ground or in the retaining wall, or severe
structural damage occurs in principal structural elements.
The serviceability limit state is defined as the state at
which specified serviceability criteria (eg. deformation or
movement of the wall) are no longer met.
BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining
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Types of Retaining Walls
 According to O’Rourke and Jones (1999),
retaining walls can be broadly classified as
externally stabilised systems and internally
stabilised systems as shown in the figure below.
For this course, we will only concentrate on the
externally stabilised systems.

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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 6
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 The terminology for gravity and reinforced concrete
retaining walls are illustrated in the figures below

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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 8
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The gravity retaining walls rely on their masses to resist
the lateral force from the soil and surcharge, if any. The
design of gravity retaining walls should consider the:
 Loss of overall stability of the wall (e.g. weak soil under
the wall)
 Sliding of the wall due to the lateral load (shear
between the wall base and the soil).
 Overturning of the wall due to the lateral load.
(rotation of the wall about its toe)
 Bearing failure of the soil (ground bearing pressure
exceeds the load-carrying capacity of the foundation).
 For the above design, active earth pressure is assumed.
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Mass Concrete Retaining Walls
 Mass concrete retaining walls are one of the simplest
forms of retaining wall and are particular suitable for
retained heights of less than 3 m. The concrete used
for the wall must have adequate durability.

Crib Walls
 Crib walls are built up of individual prefabricated units
assembled to form a series of crib-like structures
containing suitable free-draining granular infill. The
crib units and the infill are designed to act together as
a gravity retaining wall. Precast reinforced concrete
units are often used to build the crib walls in Hong
Kong. BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 10
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Reinforced Concrete Retaining Walls
 A reinforced concrete retaining wall resists bending
due to earth pressures from the backfill. However,
the backfill also provides part of the stabilising force
by resting on the base slab of the wall, and hence acts
together with the wall as a semi-gravity structure.
 The design of reinforced concrete retaining walls
should consider the:
 Loss of overall stability of the wall (e.g. weak
soil under the wall)
 Sliding of the wall due to the lateral load (shear
between the wall base and the soil).

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Overturning of the wall due to the lateral load.
(rotation of the wall about its toe)
Bearing failure of the soil (ground bearing pressure
exceeds the load-carrying capacity of the
foundation).
Structural design of the wall stem and base slab.
They should be designed to resist the bending
moments and shear forces due to the earth
pressure (at rest) acting on them.

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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 13
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L or inverted T-shaped cantilever retaining walls
• These walls have a vertical or inclined slab monolithic with a
base slab. The stem of these is designed as a cantilever.
Counterfort retaining walls
• These walls have a vertical or inclined slab supported by
counterforts monolithic with the back of the wall slab and base
slab. In designing these walls, the counterforts should be
designed as cantilevers of a T-shaped cross-section and the wall
stem should be designed as a continuous slab.
Buttressed retaining walls
• These walls have a vertical or inclined slab supported by
buttresses monolithic with the front of the wall slab and base
slab. The design of these walls is similar to that of the
counterfort walls.
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Cantilevered Retaining Walls
• The cantilevered retaining walls are generally sheet pile
walls, soldier pile walls, diaphragm walls and bored pile
walls.
• A cantilevered retaining wall derives its support from the
passive pressure of the soil or rock located in front of the
wall. The resistance the lateral soil pressure is generally
developed by the flexural strength of the wall and of
course the forces will eventually be transmitted back to
the soil. The design of cantilevered retaining walls
should consider the:

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• Loss of overall stability of the wall (e.g. weak
soil under the wall)
• Overturning of the wall due to the lateral load.
(rotation of the wall about its toe)
• Structural design of the wall based on
calculated bending moment and shear force
(simplified model of analysis for the bending
moment and shear force distribution can be
used, GEOGUIDE 1).

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Sheet pile walls
• Sheet pile walls are a series of thin sheet piles
connected together and hammer driven to soil. They are
commonly made of steel. The sheet pile wall can be a
pure cantilever wall, or with internal bracing if the wall is
high. For taller walls, tieback anchors are usually
employed to stabilise the wall as shown in the figures
below.

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Soldier pile walls
• Soldier pile walls consist of vertical wide flange steel
members with horizontal timber lagging. They are
usually used in the temporary works.

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Bored pile walls
• Bored pile walls are a row of bored piles which can be
contiguous or closely spaced with infilled concrete
panels in between. The spacing shall not be greater than
three times the pile diameter.
• If the pile is constructed in steep terrain where access is
difficult, hand dug caisson may be required to construct
the caisson wall. Hand-dug caissons are usually
excavated in stages of about one metre depth and lined
with insitu concrete in each stage of excavation.
• For machine bored piles, excavation can be done by
drill/rotary drilling bucket or by grabs and chisels within
a steel casing.
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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 20
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Diaphragm walls
• Diaphragm wall is constructed by excavation in a
trench which is temporarily supported by a bentonite
slurry. When the finding level is reached, steel
reinforcement cage will be lowered into position and
concrete will be placed (by tremie) to displace the
concrete as shown in the figure below.

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 The figure shows the guide
wall and the hydraulic grab.

The figure shows a circular

diaphragm wall.

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Analysis and Design of Retaining Walls
 In this section, we are going to discuss briefly the
basic design and analysis of retaining walls. We will
only consider the concrete gravity walls, reinforced
concrete walls and the anchored sheet pile walls.
 As discussed above, the design for retaining wall
must consider both the ultimate limit state and the
serviceability limit state. However, in this course we
will only design for the ultimate limit state, in
particular, the stability failure of the wall.

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The analysis and design of retaining walls for
stability failure requires the evaluation of the
structural adequacy of the wall to prevent
 Overturning of the wall
 Sliding of the wall at the base
 Bearing capacity failure of the soil.

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In the following discussion, we will then concentrate
on the evaluation of the above three requirements. It
should be noted that the factor of safety of gravity
walls is as follows:
Mode of Failure Recommended Factor of Safety for a Ten-year
Return Period Rainfall
New Walls Remedial and
Preventive Works to
Existing Walls
Sliding 1.5 1.25
Rotation 2.0 1.5
Bearing 3.0 Existing value to be
Capacity maintained if below
3.0

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• Please refer to Example 8.1 in the notes.

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Reinforced Concrete Retaining Wall
 Unlike the gravity retaining wall which resists overturning
and sliding mainly by its self-weight, the reinforced concrete
retaining wall supports the lateral force by flexural and shear
of the stem.
 As can be seen from the figure below, passive earth pressure
may be developed if there is soil in front of the toe area.
The figure also shows a shear key which is sometimes used
to achieve more sliding resistance (more area for the passive
pressure to develop).
 However, one should keep in mind that the soil in front of
the toe area may be subsequently removed due to whatever
reasons, hence, care should be taken when including that
area for the passive pressure calculation
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 As discussed in the previous section that the soil or fill behind
the wall helps to stabilise the wall. When there is surcharge
(i.e. additional loading on the soil or fill e.g. a house),
additional lateral force due to the surcharge will be applied to
the wall.
 The usual procedure is to treat the surcharge (w) as an
additional soil depth of z =w/g or simply evaluate the
additional lateral force by the following equation:

P’= wHKa

 Where P’ is the additional lateral force to the wall due to the

surcharge, w is the surcharge and H is the height of the wall
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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 29
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• Please refer to Example 8.2 in the notes.

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Anchored Sheet Pile Wall
 Sheet piles are commonly used to provide temporary
supports for excavations. The piles are usually driven by
hammer. Sheet piles can be braced by strut and wales if the
length of the piles is too long. However, to provide a clear
working area for wide excavation works the use of anchored
sheet pile walls may be of considerable advantage.
 Soil anchors are installed by drilling
a hole through the soil and insert a
tie or rod which is then anchored
away from the sheet piles. The
anchor rod may also be grouted to
obtain the necessary bond strength
in order to support the wall
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 The forces that exert on an anchored sheet pile wall
are shown in the figure below. It can be seen from
the figure that water pressure exists from both sides
of the wall

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• Please refer to Example 8.3 in the notes.

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Braced and Strutted Excavation
 If excavation of earth is in a wide area, the use of
braced or strutted sheet piles may be required. Of
course, the sheet piles may also be anchored as
discussed above.
 The bracing for sheet piles usually consists of wales
running across the wall to provide intermediate
supports for the sheeting.
 The wales are in turn supported by struts which provide
lateral support to resist earth pressure behind the
sheeting.
 Typical braced sheet piles are shown in the figure below

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BRE426 - Chapter 08 - Earth Retaining 35
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 The analysis of braced sheet piles relies on the
empirical diagrams of lateral pressure against the
braced sheets as shown in the figures below.
or 0.3gH

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 In analysing the forces of the struts, the usual assumption is that the
struts are hinged at all levels except at the top and the bottom ones
as shown in the figure below. The forces in the struts can then be
evaluated by considering the equilibrium of the individual free body
diagram.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
Stability of Slope

THE END

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