Types of Retaining Walls: Choosing The Right Design for Your Project

Whether you are planning to install retaining walls for residential premises or commercial properties, you must ensure using the best geosynthetics to make the most of your expenses for retaining wall design and construction.
There are different types of retaining walls. Let us first take a quick look at them.
Bored Pile Walls: Precast steel or concrete is used to erect this type of retaining wall. These are generally used along the waterfront as one of the proactive measures against shoring and erosion. Sometimes, anchors are also used for additional support to the wall.
Cantilevered Walls: Compared to traditional gravity walls, these cantilevered walls require much lesser materials for construction. Furthermore, building materials are poured on the site to construct these walls. Alternatively, these walls also come up through a concrete structure of health
Cantilevered walls have two key parts – heel and toe. These walls require right concrete and tight soil, which ensure strong support to the structure.
Counterfort Walls: These walls can be as tall as 20-40 feet. They have similarities with cantilevered walls but require more support on their backside. If height is an important criteria, counterfort walls are usually preferred to cantilever walls.
Gravity Walls: Gravity walls depend on both their own weight and gravity to hold soil firmly and hence have got the name. These walls are made of large concrete blocks and stone. They can go up as high as 10 feet though also come in small sizes that could be even 4 feet in height. Furthermore, these walls don’t need any kind of reinforcement material.
Panel Walls: One of the major benefits of panel walls is that they can be installed in small spaces such as highway ramps or places with heavy loads. Many companies deal in customized panel walls, making it easier for consumers to buy suitable panel walls that can match their unique requirements.
Segmental Retaining Walls: Many residential and commercial applications use segmental retaining walls. Both straight and curved designs are available in this segment. Due to varieties in designs, these walls are compatible across different sites, allowing investors to make the most of the available space.
Segmental retaining walls use geosynthetics for strength enhancement.
Factors to Consider While Choosing Retaining Walls
You must keep in mind some important factors to decide the right kind of retaining walls. These factors are:
Location: It is an important deciding factor in making the perfect choice. You should have essential details about the property lines and other important factors such as soil texture, slope of the property and drainage patterns.
Soil: It is a key factor to ensure a strong foundation of your retaining wall. Soil texture, its capacity of holding water and friction angle are some of the crucial considerations in this category.
Firm soil is preferred for optimum support. Wet or moist soil can create different problems in the geotextile installation process. Soil in extremely cold areas expand and contract and this feature can cause severe damages to the wall.
Design: Wall heights, setback angles and footprint sizes are some important factors worth considering for wall design.
Drainage systems and enforcement are other factors that you must not ignore when choosing retaining walls for your residential or commercial property.