ABSTRACT
Retaining walls are structures used in providing stability for earth or materials where conditions do not give room for the material to assume its natural slope and are mostly used to hold back soil banks, coal or over, piles and water.
Retaining walls are distinguished from a\one another based on the method of achieving stability.
There are six type of retaining walls and are:
i. The gravity wall
ii. The cantilever wall
iii. The counterfort retaining wall
iv. Buttressed retaining wall
v. The crib walls
vi. Semi-gravity wall
Bridge abutments are often retaining walls with using wall extension to retain the approach fill and provide protection against erosion. They differ in two major respect from the usual retaining walls.
i. They carry and reactions from the bridge span.
ii. They are restrained at the top so that on active earth pressure is unlikely to develop.
Foundation walls of building mduding residential construction and retaining walls, whose function is to contain the earth of the basement.
Retaining walls are required to be of adequate proportion to resist over turning and sliding as wall as being structurally a proportion to resist over turning and sliding as wall as being structurally adequate.
Terms used in retaining wall design are shown below (f.g 1-2)
The toe is both the front base perfection and forward edge, similarly for the heel the backward perfection.
