Increasing use is being made of embedded retaining walls for the construction of roads below ground level in urban areas. This report considers the design requirements of these types of structure in heavily overconsolidated sedimentary clays on which many urban areas in England are founded. The report reviews methods of determining wall stability and of assessing the structural loading in service. Results from simple limit equilibrium calculations are compared with predictions from numerical analyses. Attention is drawn to the importance of wall flexibility, the initial in situ stress state in the ground and the effects of excavation on the equilibrium pressure distributions likely to act on embedded walls in stiff clays in the longer term. (A)
Abstract