Retaining Wall Designer

Cantilever RC retaining walls — stability, then the stem, heel and toe in bending and shear — or the cheapest wall that passes.

IS 456 / IS 14458, ACI 318, EC2 + EN 1997

Open Retaining Wall Designer

Open it at /civiltechstudio/retaining-wall-design/app. Status: live.

Quick start

Check a 4.5 m cantilever wall to IS 456 with a 10 kN/m² surcharge, see it fail in sliding, then let the optimiser size a wall that passes.

  1. Under Design Code / Country, select India.
  2. In Geometry, set Total height H (underside of base to top of ground) to 4.5 m. Keep the other default dimensions.
  3. In Backfill, set Surcharge q to 10 kN/m². Keep the default Allowable bearing pressure of 150 kN/m².
  4. Select Run Design. The wall fails in sliding because the default 1.5 m heel is too short for the extra height and thrust.
  5. Select Size it for me. A table of passing geometries appears.
  6. Select Use this on the row marked ✓. The tool writes that geometry into the inputs and runs the design again.

Codes and standards

  • IS 456 / IS 14458: practice factors of safety (overturning 2.0, sliding 1.5; 1.5 and 1.2 with earthquake) plus cl. 20.1 and 20.2.
  • ACI 318-19: IBC 2021 §1807.2.3 (factor of safety 1.5, or 1.1 with 0.7E).
  • EN 1992-1-1 with EN 1997-1: EQU for overturning, DA1 combinations for sliding and bearing.
  • Earth pressure by Rankine or Coulomb; seismic by Mononobe–Okabe.

Inputs

  • Total height H from the underside of the base; stem thicknesses (tapered stem allowed), base thickness, toe and heel lengths (either may be 0).
  • Backfill: unit weight, friction angle, wall friction, surcharge, ground slope, water levels behind and in front.
  • Foundation soil, base friction, passive resistance, optional shear key; seismic kh and kv.
  • Materials, exposure, and either Design bars for me or Check my bars.

Outputs and exports

  • Overturning, sliding, bearing and global (Bishop) stability; member checks as demand ÷ capacity with clauses.
  • To-scale stability diagram, member bending and shear diagrams, detailing and a bar schedule (S1–S4, B1–B5, K1–K2).
  • Size it for me returns up to 15 alternatives.
  • Exports: PDF and Excel report; DXF section.

Limits

  • Bishop circles don’t model the shear key or the seismic case.
  • No shrinkage curvature in deflection; water in front of the wall isn’t counted as resisting; no seismic increase on allowable bearing.
  • Factor-of-safety overrides apply to IS 456 and ACI 318 only.