Wall Buttress Design

[Justina Ky]

DaveAtkinsRE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)2 Oct 06 09:03Ok, so as long as my footing can handle the over turning moment and my steel and concrete can handle the moment, I am good right? I am just afraid theres too much deflection counteracted by the floor diagphram at the top of the wall.

RE: Counterfort/buttress jike (Structural)2 Oct 06 10:54Make sure you calculate the wall deflection and batter the wall if necessary. Usually, the wall will be backfilled before the framing and diaphragm are constructed so the short term deflection will already have taken place. The contractor should field measure the actual distance before fabrication of the steel. You might even want to provide a slip connection for adjustment. RE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)2 Oct 06 11:31we always tell them to brace all walls before back fill. It just this one project of mine, I specified one of the foundation wall to have counterfort. There is no good place to put a buttress and they said they dont want to deal with counterfort. So I should just design the wall and footing to be able to handle the overturning moment right? And i will probably design the wall as fixed fixed (sides), fixed(bottom), free(top). Am I doing this right? RE: Counterfort/buttress DaveAtkins (Structural)2 Oct 06 14:09I have designed typical (no counterforts) retaining walls for "walk out basement" situations (backfill on just one side of the building). I don't worry about the diaphragm taking load. I believe the diaphragm and shear walls, since they can't resist the load anyway, will deflect enough to allow the load to be resisted by the retaining wall. DaveAtkins RE: Counterfort/buttress BarryEng (Civil/Environmental)5 Oct 06 18:57I usually design retaining walls to about 6 m deep.

Buttress walls & counterfort walls beyond 6 m.

Counterfort walls have a soil load on the heel to help the FOS for overturning but the counterfort is in tension.

A buttress wall is not as efficient in overturning stability but the buttress is in compression.

I have designed several walls for dam spillways to over 10 m because a clear water way is required & buttresses would interfere with the water path.

For analysis of the face wall of either a counterfort or a buttress wall, I use 'Moments & Reactions for Rectangular Plates' by Moody - a USBR publication. Water Resources Technical Publication - Engineering Monograph 27. My copy is dated 1970 & may be out of print. It has 5 sets of boundary conditions & 11 loading cases. If a is half width & b is the depth, the range of walls is from a/b = 1/8, to a/b = 3/2. Results are moments in x & y directions & support reactions for 5 divisions in the vertical direction & 10 divisions in the horizontal direction.

BarryEng RE: Counterfort/buttress cvg (Civil/Environmental)5 Oct 06 20:10note that counterforts are often used for dam spillway training walls because of the fact that the normally dry soil over the footing may become saturated when the water level rises and is assumed to become a hydrostatic load which may then become unbalanced once the flow through the spillway decreases. Design of these walls with standard cantilever footing becomes difficult since the footing gets very large and is often founded in bedrock. The last one I designed ended up with a 15 feet wide footing, nearly 5 feet thick which was anchored in concrete. This was then anchored to an existing lower counterfort wall. For this project, an option was to use either rock anchors or deadman anchors to prevent sliding or overturning RE: Counterfort/buttress cap4000 (Civil/Environmental)15 Oct 06 10:12BarryEng

Real Nice Design Info,which I found as a pdf on line.

Thanks. RE: Counterfort/buttress bridgebuster (Civil)16 Oct 06 06:48Here's a link to EM-27

_lab/pubs/EM/EM27.pdf RE: Counterfort/buttress BarryEng (Civil/Environmental)16 Oct 06 21:46To cap4000 & bridgebuster.

Thank you for the info - I was not aware that it was obtainable on the net.

I was going to send a pdf copy to SlideRuleEra for his web site because I thought that it was out of print. I will now send him your info.

BarryEng RE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)17 Oct 06 07:19Bridgebuster , I was using that table to design my foundation wall as a tank. But I found the table a little too confusing and they dont have enough points to be accurate. Now I have been using PCA tank design book. The tables are much easier to use. RE: Counterfort/buttress bridgebuster (Civil)18 Oct 06 07:38COEngineer,

I used EM-27 to design some counterfort walls about 20 years. While trying to find those calculations, I came across a copy of PCA Manual ST-63 "Rectangular Concrete Tanks" (1951). The PCA example does seem a bit easier to follow than the EM-27 approach. RE: Counterfort/buttress cap4000 (Civil/Environmental)18 Oct 06 10:41I have the Design of Concrete Structures Book 13th edition by Nilson, Darwin and Dolan and they use the Hillerborg Strip Method for their footing design. Its takes the form of a quasi two way slab type of analysis. Good Luck. RE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)18 Oct 06 11:35This is what i use

RE: Counterfort/buttress geoboy (Geotechnical)2 Nov 06 11:24Hello guys.

I've just posted a msg about internal stability in retaining walls to calculate bending moments and shear in different cases (also within tieback)

I've found your post very interesting to me and I need some pdf's you were talking about (except EM-27).

I hope u'll excuse me for my bad english and my possibly misunderstanding, I'm italian-pizza-enginner .

Thanks. RE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)2 Nov 06 11:32geoboy, this book is more for foundation wall (like a tank) not retaining wall. I dont have the pdf. Just buy it :) Shipping is cheap to Italy right? RE: Counterfort/buttress geoboy (Geotechnical)2 Nov 06 11:44Thanks for your reply.

Shipping isn't so cheap; anyway last time I ordered something from outside Europe Union 3months ago), they blocked it for 2months at the dute.

I'm still browsing the web to find something but I miss the right technical words, i guess, 'cause I'm not properly an "international-engineer"... eheh.

It's obvious that i don't find anything in italian language too (books or similiare to buy).

RE: Counterfort/buttress jhoulette (Structural)4 Nov 06 23:12COEngineer,

My post is possibly too late but I thought I would give some comments from a Colorado residential engineer in lieu of the comments from design expierience of dams and large retainging walls as posted earlier.

For all of my builders I use counterforts at a spacing of no more than 18ft (closer as the basement wall gets taller). The counterfort is typically 3ft (sometimes 4ft). I use them for ftg or piers. Becareful with piers to prevent uplift. You may need to extend the piers another 3 to 4 ft.

This is typical of most residential builders in the Denver area.

I'm curious if the PCA Rectangular Concrete Tanks gave you similar results? RE: Counterfort/buttress COEngineeer (Structural)(OP)6 Nov 06 15:21jhoulette, I usually use it to break a wall that is 20ft+ long, sometime they dont want to deal with counterfort so I just beef up the horizontal. So @18ft sounds pretty good. How do you do the calc? Excel? How do you determine the over turning moment? RE: Counterfort/buttress jhoulette (Structural)7 Nov 06 22:15I have used RamConcept and yes I have created a spreadsheet. Overturning is based simply on the soil pressure along the given trib area for the counterfort. I have found that the overturning is usually the controlling factor in my spacing of counterforts/buttresses. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1406030293255-2'); ); Red Flag This PostPlease let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

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Q: Can you go with larger size bags to make buttress walls around doors unnecessary? I have noticed that in some cases no buttress walls have been used. And eliminating them can give you extra space, save you time, and make the design more appealing.

Q: I live in Dallas, TX and the main thing I am concerned about is tornado's. Can the buttresses be columns that extend 2 feet out and connect to the roof, instead of the piers that have steps? Do I need buttresses on the 10 feet long walls?

Q: I am currently doing independent research on the structural behavior of earthbag construction. I write to request your help in understanding the concept of buttressing doorways. Is providing buttressing at doorways necessary even after providing arches above the doorways or providing lintels to redistribute loads? I would like to chalk down a mathematical expression for this issue and am trying to understand how this load redistribution works.

Q: I was hoping I could make an earthship out of earthbags. I figure I would need to place posts every 10' or so along the back wall because of the straightness and length of the wall. is this correct?

Q: I want to build a big circular community space. What is the maximum radius of an earthbag house that I can build? I don't want it to be a dome roofed but I will use traditional bamboo thatched roof. Ideal size for my needs is 14 meters in diameter. Can that be built without much buttressing?

The objective of this research project was to investigate the various methods used for rock buttress wall design, adapt them for Arkansas soil conditions and make recommendations on how to implement the procedures. A survey was sent to all fifty states and several federal government agencies. Eight percent of the states replied, and 14 states responded that they used rock buttress walls. However, none of the states used the walls as a retaining wall. A literature search revealed two design approaches which could be used for rock buttress walls. The first approach, the Indian approach, equates the wall's internal frictional forces to the soil's active forces. This approach is best suited for a uniform soil behind the wall. The second approach, Swedish slice method, uses a circular arc to model the soil failure plane. The soil's tangential, frictional and cohesive forces are equated to the wall's frictional forces to design the rock buttress wall. This approach should be used when the location of failure planes are known or when the soil is layered. The present geometrical shape of the rock buttress wall used in Arkansas does produce an adequate wall. However, settlements and allowable bearing stresses should be considered in the foundation design along with the bearing stresses within the stones. Also, a new geometrical design should be considered for walls of about six feet or less in height. This design should have side slopes of 1:1 (H:V) to 1:2 and stone should be placed in the backfill area between the wall and soil as the wall is constructed.

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