The80sRock
Structural
Have you ever written a simple word and then looked at it wondering if you spelled it right? And you just questioned it for a while until you had to look it up in a dictionary and know you had it right? I'm having one of those moments in regards to a retaining wall.
The wall retains 18' of soil on the back side with a 36" diameter RCP in the bottom center of the wall discharging water into a ditch on the front side. The pipe is not what's bothering me. The ditch on the front side is at it's lowest in the center of the wall. But as ditches tend to do, it slopes up to either end of the wall exposing less and less of the front side of the wall until there is only 2' of exposed wall at both ends. So at the ends of the wall I have 18' of retained soil and 16' of soil over the toe. In my mind, the wall is not doing much work at that point and just completely overdesigned, which the owner doesn't care about. This is everyone else's experience as well, correct? That much soil on the front side counteracts the rotation and sliding from the soil on the back side? I'm using you guys as my dictionary right now. What am I missing?
The wall retains 18' of soil on the back side with a 36" diameter RCP in the bottom center of the wall discharging water into a ditch on the front side. The pipe is not what's bothering me. The ditch on the front side is at it's lowest in the center of the wall. But as ditches tend to do, it slopes up to either end of the wall exposing less and less of the front side of the wall until there is only 2' of exposed wall at both ends. So at the ends of the wall I have 18' of retained soil and 16' of soil over the toe. In my mind, the wall is not doing much work at that point and just completely overdesigned, which the owner doesn't care about. This is everyone else's experience as well, correct? That much soil on the front side counteracts the rotation and sliding from the soil on the back side? I'm using you guys as my dictionary right now. What am I missing?
