The photo of this failed SPL wall is pretty remarkable. It was discussed in a thread I came accross on EngTips.com. The originator of the thread (kleo) says he was involved from the contractor side on this project in a mountainous rainforest region near Cuba. He also says the wall was designed by “FHWA”, don’t know if that means US FHWA or what. But if so, I have no idea where this project would be located. The wall was designed for a 15-ft high cantilever with around 20-ft embedded with the last 7-ft being into bedrock. Check out the thread to kick in your hypothesis for kleo.
Related Articles
Side Hill Retaining Walls – Part 2
In this part 2 of 2, various types of retaining walls are examined as possible alternatives in a side-hill retaining wall situation. These include conventional wall types such as CIP walls, MSE walls, gravity walls and soldier pile walls and some less conventional approaches such as lighweight concrete fill, hybrid soil-nail and geofoam wall systems, ground improvement and micropile walls.
Part 1 of this Side Hill Retaining Wall article covered the definition, significance, problems and failure modes, investigation techniques, analysis, and construction considerations of side hill walls. A PDF version is now available for download as well. Click through for the article and the download link!
Subway Tunnel Collapse in Cologne Germany
Early indications are that a collapse of a subway tunnel station still under construction was to blame for the sinkhole that destroyed Cologne’s Historical Archive, home to documents dating back to 922 A.D. More info after the break. (Photo by DPA via Spiegel Online)
Calibration of Resistance Factors for Drilled Shafts for the New FHWA Design Method
The Louisiana Transportation Research Center has released a report that presents the reliability-based analyses for the calibration of the resistance factor for load and resistance factor design of axially loaded drilled shafts. Here is the […]