Retaining Wall Collapse - Woodstock

[BigH]

No, Jimi didn't cause it . . . but see link. For the life of me, and it may be because I'm too tired to see it - but what kind of retaining wall is that? looks like a tilt-up panel - were they going to attach reinforcing strips for an MSE wall? You see the panels tilt off the pad - so it isn't a cantilever wall.

http://www.ajc.com/news/retaining-wall-collapses-during-1141177.html

 

[Ron]

BigH....those are precast panels keyed into a footing (for sliding, but not adequate for cantilever). They will have deadman connections in the backfill.

The problem appears to be their temporary shoring. The panels probably weigh more than the New Jersey barriers they are using for ballast. Further, they are using small wood sections in tension with thru-bolts...hmmmm...think there might be a problem here?

 

[BigH]

Ron - that's what it looked like to me when I blew up the small pictures. This is a perfect wall, too, for using RECO style strips rather than just deadmen . . . When I was in India, there was a "Malaysian" MSE wall - that used strips but so they wouldn't infringe on RECO, they put a little 300x600 anchor block at the end of the strip to act as an unneeded deadman . . .

Our job here had a lot of wall movements during placing of concrete because the contractor just wouldn't reinforce the bracing enough. Wished I had bough stock in Sika before this job started . . . .

 

[Ron]

BigH...agree that strips would be better than deadmen...they can do them at multiple levels to distribute stress. Did some strain gauging on some Reinforced Earth strips about 30 years ago...surprising how the stress distributions dissipated so quickly in the soil.