Advice on modelling traffic loading behind a 3m gabion wall

[Heavy03]

I have designed a gabion wall which supports a private road in an industrial estate in the UK. The maximum retained wall height is 3m. It has been design with a live load surcharge of 12kPa on the crest and passes the analysis criteria on the software i'm using. Could someone advise me if this loading will be enough to represent a typical 40 tonne lorry? If not any tips on how to model this?

 

[RFreund]

You could possibly model the wheel loads as line or point loads using an elastic method such as the boussinesq as modified by Terzaghi. This can be found in USS Sheet Piling manual or Caltran Trenching and shoring 2011 manual or you can try poulos and davis

http://www.usucger.org/PandD/Chapter 2.pdf

but need to apply a FS). Or you could try a trial wedge analysis. You will need to determine what a reasonable length of wall is to distribute the point load over.

EIT

http://www.HowToEngineer.com