Quick start

Retaining Wall Designer

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

  • 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.

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.

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