TABLE OF CONTENTS Retaining walls can be used to stabilize an earth embankment and protect it from erosion, create terraces in a sloping yard, build a tree well, or build raised planting beds. Retaining walls may be built of brick, concrete, concrete block, or stone. Some designs incorporate reinforcing steel and others rely soley on gravity to resist soil pressures. Newer systems of special concrete masonry retaining wall blocks have greatly simplified the design and installation of retaining walls, and there are a number of proprietary products available.
Traditional retaining walls are built with steel reinforcing bars embedded in concrete, grouted between two wythes of solid brick, or grouted in the hollow cores of concrete block. A concrete footing anchors the wall and resists overturning and sliding forces. This type of wall is called a reinforced cantilever retaining wall because the stem of the wall is essentially cantilevered from the footing in much the same way that a beam might be cantilevered from a column (Figure 10-1). Cantilever retaining walls are rigid structures of solid construction. Allowances must be made for expansion and contraction of the materials and for drainage of soil moisture, which may build up behind the wall. The strength of these walls derives from the combination of steel for tensile strength and concrete or masonry for compressive strength and corrosion protection.
Before steel and concrete were invented, retaining walls...
