Modular Block Retaining Wall Design Packages 3

[Mickney]

I am a principal at a civil engineering firm where we provide civil design, geotechnical, environmental, surveying and construction materials testing services. Currently, we are seeking to add retaining wall design to our services. I am looking for recommendations on modular block retaining wall design packages. In addition, I am also looking for standard specifications sheets for retaining wall construction. I appreciate any assistance in this matter. Best regards.

 

[johnthewallguy]

one more thing: Lately I've seen some great wall specifications that were completely generic (any competent block/reinforcement
) and that also placed experience requirements on the engineer and installer. I think that is healthy for our industry. You'll like this Msucog: it clearly defines Geotech/contractor/owner responsibilities.

 

[msucog]

"it clearly defines geotech/contractor/owner responsibilities"...hey, that sounds alright with me as long i'm involved in determining my responsibility and not told two days after the wall has started construction. we've got folks fully capable of looking at wall construction and checking some of the numbers but we're not going to get wrapped up in the litigation due to the specs being all screwed up. and when we ask questions to get it clarified, someone else usually ends up doing the testing which is a-okay with us. hopefully, there will continue to be improvements so that we can all be one big happy family again and i can start recommending that our clients go with these walls again (i've stopped recommending them for the past couple years due to some of the gripes i've made).

and for those reading this thread thinking i hijacked john, it wasn't intended to be quite that harsh...and if i weren't disgruntled with mse wall designers/contractors in general right now, i'd have to recommend john over all the others out there that i've dealt with in the past (so for what it's worth, hopefully that will mend up the damage done by my rather blunt comments).

i'll get out of this discussion since i've side-tracked mickney's thread enough already. (thanks for your patience while i temporarily diverted the discussion).

 

[Panars]

johnthewallguy-
"one more thing: Lately I've seen some great wall specifications that were completely generic"

Could you share with us these good examples? For those of us who write specs, it would be helpful to see good examples.

 

[johnthewallguy]

Absolutely, let me upload an example and I'll post it.
Also, everyone needs to check out the IFAI publication "Geosynthetics" (

http://www.geosyntheticsmagazine.info)

They are running a multi-part article called "Challenges in Building SRW's" that covers a lot of issues that I think are near and dear to us all. Simac and Fitzpatrick are the authors.

wallguy

 

[msucog]

i see a wall or two of yours made it in the article...

i'm not going to badmouth the authors on this public board but i've yet to see specific specifications backed up with an exploration and testing protocol set by the wall designer. i don't ever seem to have problems getting structural engineers to specify the tests and frequencies for say concrete, steel, masonry, etc. so i'm not sure why it's so difficult to get it out of wall designers. as a matter of fact, i can't even get wall designers to provide parameters to run the tests at or to report the results, so all this hype about great wall specifications is a myth to me until i see it happen on a project.

i think mickney's got the right idea...if testing firms are going to get stuck with the liability, we might as well get paid for the design too. i applaud mickney for taking this step and will note that i'm fairly certain there are other firms in the process of doing the same thing because they got bit in the arse by a wall designer dumping their liability on everyone else.

mickney, thanks again for your patience on this thread since it's off track now.