OPTIMUM DESIGN OF RETAINING WALL FOR EARTH RETAINING STRUCTURES OF DIFFERENT HEIGHT

Retaining walls are usually classified as geotechnical structures.
Retaining wall can be either earth retaining wall or water retaining wall. For
earth retaining wall, it is generally used to provide lateral support for an earth
fill, embankment, or some other material and to support vertical loads. One
primary purpose for these walls is to maintain a difference in elevation of the
ground surface on each side of the wall. The earth whose ground surface is at
the higher elevation is commonly called the backfill, and the wall is said to
retain this backfill. The main objective to be achieved by this project is to
investigate the optimum height of different types of retaining wall. As the
problems regarding the slope failure and land sliding is becoming more
significant in the Peninsular Malaysia, the study on how to minimize or even
to eliminate the risks of these problems are crucial. The optimum height of
different types of retaining wall should be detem1ined and the design needs to
be optimized to provide the best rectification possible. In order to determine
the optimum height of different types of retaining walls such as cantilever
wall, counter-fort and buttress wall, macros on Excel spreadsheet programs to
be develop. Based on the most critical parameters such as soil properties,
surcharge pressure, and etc the optimum height can be obtained and then the
design is to be optimized.