No, I do not consider this a geotech question but i am in a foundations forum. my mistake. Also, my boss missunderstood my original question and I did not recognize that. This then led me in the wrong direction of trying to figure out how a key will help increase the stem base shear capacity...
I came to the same resolution. Increasing the width of the stem at the base by 2" solved it but I was trying to keep the yardage down.
Thanks for the help.
Sorry, went home for the night. Here's the deal. I told my boss that the shear at the base of the stem wall was to high and he recomended that I use a key at the base of the stem wall in order to engage the footing slab (then he went out of town). I'm just not sure how to analyse this to say...
I'm in the process of designing a 21' cantilevered retaining wall and the shear at the base (between the stem wall and the footing) is a bit too high. I'd like to include a shear key as well as the effects of friction to increase my capacity but I'm not sure how to analize the key in this...