Sea-Tac Runway Nearing Completion
Project Related
Case Study for Tensar ARES MSE walls in Henderson, Nevada
The ARES wall system is a geosynthetic reinforced MSE wall with a concrete panel facing. Most concrete panel systems use metallic reinforcement. On this project, the on-site backfill soil did not meet electrochemical requirements for […]
Standards and Codes
New NCMA Segmental Retaining Wall Design Manual and Software
This summer, the National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) will release the third edition of its Design Manual for Segmental Retaining Walls (DMSRW) along with SRWall 4.0 software for the design of segmental retaining walls. SRW walls with higher wall heights often make use of geotextile or geogrid reinforcement putting them in the category of mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls or MSE Walls. The first edition of the manual was published in 1993 and is routinely used for everything from landscaping walls to multi-tiered commercial and residential retaining walls. This summer is shaping up to be a busy one for those in the retaining wall business as the FHWA NHI 2009 MSE Wall Manual is set to be released around the same time frame as well. Read on for more info on the DMSRW. (Screen shot by Gabriela Mariscal from NCMA via CE News)
Software Updates
ReSSA Major Update and MSEW Update
The downloads page at ADAMA Engineering lists an update (Number 1) for ReSSA 3.0. I have not even heard anything about the release of version 3.0, and even other pages on their website only mention ReSSA 2.0 as the latest version. As soon as I hear anything about the new version and its additional features, I’ll be sure to post the info here. ReSSA is software for the design of reinforced soil slopes or RSS.
An update for the MSE wall design software MSEW was also released recently. This update is number 8.1 and primarily updates the way reinforcement database files are referenced, allowing the location of the database file currently in use to be stored in the project file. After recently completing a major MSE wall review using MSEW, all I can say is halleluia! I had to manually locate the database file for every single one of my old runs. This should be a nice fix.