Retaining Wall Collapse (partial)

[Road Guy]

drainage related?



https://www.ajc.com/news/traffic/breaking-wall-collapses-onto-unfinished-toll-lanes-cobb-county/TsU0k05JyGVw90DUi5MMSL/

 

[leggo PE]

YIkes, that's no good.

It's hard for me to tell what the cause would have been based on that photo. It looks like the retaining system was a cap beam with some sort of lagging all the way down, but I can't really tell what is keeping the lagging in place.

 

[MA_PE]

nothing looks wet to me so it likely isn't related to drainage.  Looks like the tieback connections to the panels failed.

 

[jeb6294]

drainage related?

Well as we all know, that is the most difficult of the Engineering disciplines.

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

Bad installation or design? Looks like that wall was more of a decorative wall with just gravel between that and the main retaining wall which have the tie backs still attached.  Maybe they didn't secure tie rods in this area? Unless there was a sudden pressure applied,  I would think that the panels would still be partially connected to the tie backs.

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

Well as we all know, that is the most difficult of the Engineering disciplines.

Funny thing is I came across this reference last night when I was doing a search about independent consulting.  Very interesting website...

 

[knight1fox3]

^ certainly can't imagine what that would have been. </sarcasm>

 

[jeb6294]

We've got a "retaining wall" over on the east side of town like that.  Everyone thinks it's a pretty stone wall, but they don't have a clue that those stones don't do squat.  There's actually an regular old ugly retaining wall behind those stones doing all the work.  All that was built new so nobody could see the wall when it was being put in, but the Engineer who designed it is a friend of mine and he got some pictures during construction.