|
ABU Online
Our Design Professional ABU Online events were created to help you with your retaining wall needs. Our local production and sales partners will be happy to schedule in person training on any topics you see below (call us if you are looking for those individuals), but feel free to use these to help with immediate needs.
|
Design Professionals
Upcoming Events:
Allan Block 3D Modeling Tool
AB 3D Modeling Tool - What is it and How does it Work with AB Walls Design Software?
Fridays @ 1:30 CST: (30 min)
Sign up:
Click Here to Choose a Day
Best Practices: Chapter 7, Understanding Geogrid
June 27, 2019
Sign up:10 AM CST
Sign up:2 PM CST
Sign up:4 PM CST
Best Practices: Tall Wall and Seismic
July 25, 2019
Sign up:10 AM CST
Sign up:2 PM CST
Sign up:4 PM CST
Best Practices: Global Stability Impacts on SRW's
August 22, 2019
Sign up:10 AM CST
Sign up:2 PM CST
Sign up:4 PM CST
|
A NOTE ABOUT CALENDAR REMINDERS: Once registered for an ABU Online event, you will receive an email notification with a calendar invite attached. Simply open that calendar invite and save it to your calendar for easy access in the future. In addition, you should receive 2-3 email reminders about the event.
|
Inspiring Project Ideas
|
|
ParkVue at Livingston
Back to Top
|
ParkVue at Livingston is a large luxury rental community located just West of Newark, NJ and subsequently, New York, NY. This community now proudly displays a new retaining wall project, which incorporates Allan Block Classic Block with natural stone for a striking transition from surrounding wildlife to a newly constructed apartment complex. The natural stone divides two sets of tiered Allan Block walls and allows water from above to flow freely into the pond below, creating a man-made waterfall. Coupled with natural vegetation on top of each wall terrace, the structure blends seamlessly into the environment.
|
Because of the complexity of the retaining walls on site, hiring a highly qualified engineer with retaining wall experience was a top priority. Robert Sive from Geller Sive and Company out of Farmingdale, NJ, was hired on as the designing engineer thanks to his wall design experience. A 25 ft (8 m) tall waterfall running between two terraced retaining walls and water applications are each complex applications on their own, but for this project, Robert needed to design for all three. With terraced walls approaching such a height, it was important for Robert to keep Chapter 10 of the Allan Block Best Practices in mind.
James R. Ientile, Inc was contracted by Squiretown Properties for all site work improvements at ParkVue. Besides the 25,000 ft2 (2300 m2) of Allan Block retaining walls on site, James R. Ientile was also responsible for constructing the 25 ft (8 m) waterfall. The stones for the waterfall were actually found on site and re-purposed for this application. For the retaining walls, Allan Block Classic block was used with geogrid placed on every other course. Wall Rock was used to fill the blocks and an engineered backfill including a mixture of 0.75 in. (19 mm) rock with the fill from the site was used behind the walls.
Thanks to James R. Ientile, Inc’s attention to detail, the retaining walls now stand strong and add a striking new feature to this budding community.
For more detailed information on the ParkVue at Livingston project, check out the case study here
|
|
|
|
Proper Design of Terraced Walls
Back to Top
|
|
As we saw in the ParkVue at Livingston projects, terraced wall structures not only provide the functionality of allowing a safe way to provide grade changes to a site, but they also add a tremendous amount of aesthetic value to a site. For many projects, the owners would rather have three or four shorter walls instead of one large wall to enhance the character of the site they are looking for. Knowing the wall arrangement ahead of time, the wall designer can make a few distinct changes in how they proceed with a terraced wall as opposed to a more typical single wall design.
|
|
First, understand that as the walls above are pushed back, they become surcharges to the lower walls and depending on how close the wall separations are will determine how the loads are applied. A typical wall design approach used for surcharges is when a surcharge starts behind a wall a distance equal to twice the lower wall’s height, then the surcharge does not apply any load to the wall, in other words, they act independently. For walls that are within twice the height, the designer can use AB Walls 3D design program to model the surcharge. This is done by using the unit weight of soil and the exposed height of the wall above, say 120 pcf (19 kN/m3) multiplied by 5 ft (1.5 m) of height resulting in a 600 psf (28.5 kPa) surcharge.
|
Typical wall designs have grid lengths starting at 60 to 70% of the total wall height. Therefore, in a terraced wall, the bottom wall should be designed with grid lengths equal to or greater than 60% to 70% of the total structure height. Let’s consider three walls at 5 ft (1.5 m) tall, each separated by 5 ft (1.5 m). The total structure height is 15 ft (4.6 m) so the bottom wall’s grid lengths should be 9 ft (2.7 m) to 10.5 ft (3.2 m). The subsequent upper walls will have grid lengths at least 60 to 70% of the remaining structure height and so on to the top wall’s design.
Key items to consider are the foundation soils for the upper walls. They are most often the infill soils of the wall below it. It is a must that these soils are well compacted to minimize the chance of future settlement.
Lastly, whenever a wall structure is designed in a terraced orientation, the designer should model the wall system in a global stability modeling program such as ReSSA. Although you have designed the terraces in a wall design program like our AB Walls 3D program, the global model may provide results requiring longer or stronger geogrids. If this is the case, you can then go back into AB Walls and manually adjust the grids as needed and rerun the calculations to have a final set of internal and external safety factors.
For more information on terraced wall design or construction or for a copy of AB Walls, please contact the Allan Block Engineering Department at engineering@allanblock.com for assistance.
|
|
|
|
Proper Construction of Terraced Walls
Back to Top
|
|
The construction of terraced walls follow the same steps that are laid out in our Residential and Commercial Install Manuals for single walls with a few more considerations.
- Labor and cost estimate for bidding
- Proper compaction
- Water management
- Permanent Facing – This can be concrete, steel, or timber to provide the aesthetic for the wall structure
|
Click to enlarge
|
Labor and Cost Estimate for Bidding: With a terraced application the multiple leveling pads and base course installation need to be considered in the bidding process for time and labor cost.
Proper Compaction: Since the upper wall(s) will be installed above the reinforced and retained zone of the lower wall(s) proper compaction needs to be addressed to reduce settlement over time.
Water Management: Check with the wall designer to see how they plan to manage any water on the site using swales and berms above the walls or within the wall toe and heel drains or blanket and chimney drains. These drains must be vented, but simply venting them through the face will introduce more water above lower walls. This needs to be considered in the design.
For more information check out our website or contact engineering@allanblock.com.
|
|
|
|
AB Walls 3D Visuals
Back to Top
|
|
AB Walls 3D is one of the most powerful SRW design software packages on the market. It provides cutting edge outputs for many situations with the click of a button. Beyond the great design capabilities, below you will see the various outputs you can get to help sell and/or support any project:
AB Walls 3D Internal Outputs:
-
11x17 Shop Drawings: This option from within AB Walls 3D allows you to create construction drawings that show elevation, plan and cross sections that could be used by the excavator to cut the wall, and the wall contractor to build the wall. An easy to follow set of plans that contractors have come to love
-
8.5x11 Submittal Drawings: Similar to the 11x17 set, you will receive elevation, plan and cross section views, but in addition you can also receive expanded technical outputs associated with each section. The set of drawings is ideal for independent review of the design.
-
DXF for AutoCAD drawings: We often hear about the hours a CAD expert has spent drawing the various views of an SRW within AutoCAD such as the elevation and hatch pattern of the block. When you see the AB Walls 3D export feature you will immediately see value in the tool. This one-click feature will allow you to pull specs, plan, elevation and section views into AutoCAD in no time at all.
|
Click to enlarge
|
-
3-Dimension: Our newest feature of the software allows each user to easily pull the wall design into a 3D rendering. This could be used for a variety of reasons including:
- Provide the finished visual to the owner
- Identify where the wall envelope (including grid depth) may intersect obstructions such as building pads, utilities, lot lines, curb and gutter, etc.
|
|
Contact us today to get your FREE copy of AB Walls 3D and start profiting from this tool immediately.
|
|
|
|
Did We Miss Someone? If you know someone at your company who doesn't want to miss out on this amazing newsletter, send them this email so they can sign-up for the AB Technical Newsletter here!
|
|
