Retaining_Walls
Temporary and permanent ground support of steep and vertical cut or fill faces.
Project works that incorporate steep or vertical faces in the ground require suitable retaining walls to provide adequate lateral support, limit ground movements, control ground water flow and prevent erosion/degradation of the face.
The retaining walls can be temporary or permanent and classified as “top-down” where a cut face below ground level requires support or “bottom-up” where imported fill material raises the ground level and requires support. Cantilever walls rely upon embedment and bending moment capacity for stability and tend to deflect more than propped walls that have lateral restraint from ground anchors, structural slabs or props.
The selection, analysis, design and specification of retaining wall solutions requires a robust understanding of the relevant ground model, appreciation of project requirements and constraints, understanding of relevant design parameters of the soil types behind and below the wall and 2D or 3D analytical capability.
In order to identify and select an optimised solution, in terms of cost, time, access, performance and constructability familiarity with the strengths and limitations of numerous available retaining wall types is required.
The CMW team has extensive experience, on a global scale, of the selection, analysis, design, specification and monitoring of many retaining wall projects. In particular we have hands on experience in relation to all of the following retaining wall types that enables us to ensure efficient and effective solutions, that meet project requirements, are adopted:
- Temporary and permanent sheet pile walls.
- Diaphragm walls;
- Contiguous and secant pile walls;
- Timber, steel or concrete soldier pile walls;
- Soil nail walls;
- Minipile walls;
- Block gravity walls;
- Grouted gravity walls;
- Soil mix walls;
- Reinforced earth walls.
The extensive retaining wall design capability and construction monitoring experience available within the CMW team enables us to help select and specify the optimum solution to meet site constraints including critical issues such as ground displacements and impact on adjacent existing structures.