Vary Reinforcement along Height of MSEW

[Trouser]

On a recent project, our Contract Office was asking questions about the design of an MSEW. One of my co-workers pointed out that they used to vary the reinforcement length along the height of MSEW to reduce backfill quantities. I know that AASHTO code does not allow this, but I don't have any background regarding why the industry has moved away from this technique. Thoughts?

Another topic of interest relates to minimizing wall areas. Are there any tips/tricks that a saltier engineering may have that would help to reduce wall areas when the MSEW acts as a bridge abutment? On our last project, the EOR layed the walls out in a U-shape. The bottom of the u is parallel with the bridge abutment and the sides are parallel to the centerline of the alignment. This required a lot of steps in the wall bottom as well as a lot of buried wall area to maintain slope stability.

 

[cloa]

I assume thats a Mechanically Stabilized Earth Wall

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[Trouser]

Yes