Retaining wall in front of a vertical rock surface-Lateral Pressure? 3

[IJR]

The rock is tall (50ft, 17m)and is cut almost vertically. From rockface to wall the clearance is less than 2ft(0.60m). Sure there will be a cohesionless fill there. Does this slim fill qualify to cause lateral pressure? If yes, where is the failure plane and how can Coulomb procedure work here?

Thanks in advance.

ijr

 

[DTrisler]

The short answer is yes there will be lateral pressure, but likely reduced. Here are several papers that should help:

[li]Frydman, Sam and Keissar, Israel (1987), "Earth pressure on retaining walls near rock faces," Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 113, No. 6, June, pp. 586-599.[/li]
[li]Lawson, C. R., and Yee, T. W. (2005), "Reinforced soil retaining walls with constrained reinforced fill zones," Proceedings, Geo-Frontiers 2005, ASCE Geo-Institute Conference.[/li]
[li]Leshchinsky, Dov, and Hu, Yuhui (2003), "Design implications of limited reinforced zone space in SRW's," Proceedings of the 17th GRI Conference[/li]
[li]Kuo-Hsin Yang and J. G. Zornberg, The Coefficient of Earth Pressure on Retaining Walls Placed in Front of a Stable Face with Limited Space; Research paper at University of Texas, sponsored by Texas DOT.[/li]
[li]Kuo-Hsin Yang; Jianye Ching;and Jorge G. Zornberg, "Reliability-Based Design for External Stability of Narrow Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls: Calibration from Centrifuge Tests", JOURNAL OF GEOTECHNICAL AND GEOENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, ASCE / MARCH 2011 / 239[/li]

 

[Doctormo]

Soil Engineering, Spangler & Handy, 4th edition has a few pages on this situation. Can get a little tricky in a seismic zone.

 

[miningman]

Do you have access to photos of the rock face providing at least initial rock mapping ability?? Was the face re-inforced with rock bolts prior to construction of the retaining wall?? Maybe I'm wrong but without this data I cant see how anyone can predict the location of the likely potential failure planes