Gravity Retaining Wall

GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada www.geo-slope.
com
Gravity Retaining Wall

1 Introduction
The difficulty with retaining walls is that they are often concrete or a similar material which, compared to
soil, are extremely strong (Figure 1). It is not advisable to include the actual strength of the retaining wall
in the analysis, due to potential convergence difficulties. Consider also that failure of retaining walls is
usually a result of undercutting of the retaining wall, not shearing of the concrete itself. For this mode of
failure, the strength of the retaining wall itself becomes inconsequential, but the weight of the wall acting
as a stabilizing force is critical.
The purpose of this example is to outline and describe an appropriate procedure for analyzing the stability
of the gravity retaining wall. Features of this simulation include:
Use of a no-strength soil model to represent non-water materials
Fully specified slip surface
A specified axis of rotation
A tension crack line
Use of a high strength soil model
Optimization of the most critical slip surface
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
Elevation (m)
13
12
11
10
9 Backfill Concrete
8 Retaining
Wall
7
6
5
4 Foundation Soil
3
2
0 5 10 15 20 25
Distance (m)
Figure 1 Profile used for gravity retaining wall simulation
2 Configuration and setup

In this example, a series of fully specified slip surfaces that pass underneath the gravity retaining wall are
specified, and an axis of rotation is defined as shown in Figure 2. When using an axis of rotation, it is
important to ensure that a rigorous analysis method that satisfies both force and moment equilibrium is
SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 1 of 5

GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada www.geo-slope.com
used (i.e., Spencer, Morgenstern-Price) as the solution is insensitive to the location of the axis. Note that
all seven of the fully specified slip surfaces start and end outside the geometry of the profile. The slip
surfaces have different projection angles behind the retaining wall, but coalesce to a single failure plane
under the wall itself.
Figure 2 Location of the fully specified slip surfaces and the axis of rotation
By defining a series of fully specified slip surfaces that pass beneath the gravity retaining wall, an
undercutting failure mechanism can be analyzed and the actual strength of the wall (i.e., c’ and ’) does
not need to be quantified. The gravity retaining wall can be modeled as a no-strength soil model with an
appropriate unit weight that ensures that the weight of the wall is included in the analysis. The strength
parameters of the concrete will not come into the factor of safety calculation, and therefore do not need to
be quantified.
The material properties used in this analysis are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Material properties used for the fully specified slip surface example
Material Unit Weight c’ ’

Retaining Wall 22 - -
Backfill 18 10 35
Foundation Soil 18 10 25

3 Concrete wall with Mohr Colomb model

The critical slip surface and factor of safety are shown in Figure 3. Note that the slip surface is forced to
slide just below the gravity wall. Figure 4 is a graph showing the frictional angle used along the slip
surface. You can see that the correct frictional angles for the backfill material (35o) and the foundation
soil (25o) are used correctly.
Figure 3 Factor of safety and location of the critical slip surface when the concrete wall is
modeled with Mohr Colomb
Figure 4 Frictional angle used along the slip surface

4 Optimized factor of safety

Since a slip surface with angular corners is not physically realistic, optimization of the critical slip surface
was performed, which resulted in a lower factor of safety and a slip surface, as shown in Figure 5. Note
that the optimized critical slip surface has a lower factor of safety and a steeper slope. For this particular
situation, the optimized slip surface analysis becomes an enhancement to the original critical slip surface
analysis.
Figure 5 Shape and factor of safety of the optimized slip surface
It is important to note that while the optimized slip surface presented for this particular simulation appears
to be reasonable, it is possible that the optimized slip surface might have been significantly different in
shape than the original fully specified critical slip surface. For example, since the gravity retaining wall is
modeled with a no strength model, it is possible that during the optimization procedure, a trial slip surface
may cut through the gravity retaining wall resulting in a lower factor of safety. Since the purpose of this
analysis was specifically to study a mode of failure that undercut the wall, this would have to be
interpreted and dismissed as an invalid solution.
Perhaps a better option is to model the gravity retaining wall as a material with a high cohesion and
frictional angle. This will ensure that any trial slip surface cutting into the gravity retaining wall during
the optimization process will result in a higher factor of safety. In other words, our primary objectives can
be guaranteed even when the critical slip surface is optimized. In this analysis, the retaining wall is
modeled with a Mohr-Coulomb soil model with cohesion = 500 kPa and a frictional angles of 45 degrees.

5 Concrete wall with High strength model

Instead of using a Mohr Colomb soil model with a very high Phi and Cohesion to model a concrete
retaining wall, a more intuitive approach is to model the concrete wall with a “High Strength” soil model
(New strength model in V8). Using a high strength model, you only need to specify the unit weight of the
wall. The unit weight of the concrete wall is needed to compute the normal stress of the material below
the wall. You can also use entry and exit for your slip surface search and all slip surfaces attempting to
penetrate through the high strength material will be ignored. In other words, only slip surfaces going
below the concrete walls are considered.
Figure 6 shows the critical slip surface of the embankment when the concrete wall is modeled with a high
strength material. Note that a more elaborate slip surface search using the entry and scheme is used. The
critical factor of safety is 1.504, a little lower than the case when limited fully specified slip surfaces are
used.
Figure 6 Factor of safety and location of the critical slip surface when the concrete wall is
modeled with a high strength material

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GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada www.geo-slope.

Gravity Retaining Wall

2 Configuration and setup

SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 1 of 5

Material Unit Weight c’ ’

SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 2 of 5

3 Concrete wall with Mohr Colomb model

Figure 4 Frictional angle used along the slip surface

SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 3 of 5

4 Optimized factor of safety

Figure 5 Shape and factor of safety of the optimized slip surface

SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 4 of 5

5 Concrete wall with High strength model

SLOPE/W Example File: Gravity retaining wall.docx (pdf) (gsz) Page 5 of 5

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