Retaining walls are designed and constructed to retain certain amount of soil at a particular location. Retaining wall must prevent any movement of soil it is designed to hold back so as not to cause damage to buildings properties nearby.
A good retaining wall must adequately resist sliding and overturning forces of the retained soil acting on it. To achieve this , the retaining wall must be designed to determine the correct size and amount of reinforcement required.
The design of retaining walls is very tedious and time consuming. However you can take advantage of this free retaining wall design SPREADSHEET to aid your design. It is a free spreadsheet created with Microsoft excel that designs retaining walls to BS 8110.
Credit goes to the Reinforced Concrete Council UK for making this spreadsheet free.
You can download RETAINING WALL DESIGN WITH EXCEL SPREADSHEET HERE
You can also watch the video through this link; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PF43tc41f4
How to use Retaining wall design with excel.
You enter data into cells with blue text.
In the first six rows of the spreadsheet you can enter name of project, client, date, job title and even logo.
From row 7 to row 21, you see a diagrammatic retaining wall explaining member dimensions and forces acting on it.
Row 22 to 26 you enter or edit retaining wall dimensions such as length and thickness of stem and base.
You enter material properties data such as strength and factor of safety for concrete and steel in row 27 to 32.
Enter soil properties data in row 33 to 41.
Lastly you enter load data in rows 43 to 53.
If data you have entered is ok, you will see design status read VALID in row 7.
Check the stability calculations by clicking the STABILITY TAB at the bottom of the spread sheet.
Required calculated Reinforcement for retaining wall can be viewed by clicking the DESIGN TAB. Similarly you can click the WEIGHT, Diagrams, Crackwidth and Notes TAB for more information.
To use excel spreadsheet to aid your design of pad footings you can read this POST