1. Home
  2. NOVA School of Science and Technology
  3. Civil Engineering
  4. Geotechnics Profile
  5. Special Foundations and Retaining Walls

Special Foundations and Retaining Walls

Objectives

The student should be able to:

1. Verify the safety for ultimate and serviceability limit states of flexible retaining walls.

2. Predict levels of damage to buildings adjacent to excavations supported by multi-propped retaining walls.

3. Verify the safety for ultimate and serviceability limit states of deep foundations (single piles and groups of piles), for vertical (compression and traction) and horizontal loading.

General characterization

Code

10463

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Nuno Manuel da Costa Guerra

Hours

Weekly - 5

Total - 70

Teaching language

Português

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Available soon

Teaching method

Theoretical and practical classes, where presentation of theory is followed by simple applications by the students.

Evaluation method

Two tests of final exam (15 val.)

A written report (5 val.)

Subject matter

1. Earth pressures: special cases. Retaining structures with complex shape. Very inclined retaining structures.

2. Flexible retaining structures. Single-propped walls: effect of the soil-to-wall friction on its design. Multi-propped walls. Struts and anchors. Apparent earth pressure diagrams. Base stability. Actions of water and surcharges. Anchored walls. Design of walls under vertical loading. Overall stability. Movements caused by excavations. Instrumentation and monitoring. Levels of damage to buildings adjacent to excavations supported by multi-propped retaining walls.

3.Deep foundations. Resistance of single piles and groups of piles to vertical and horizontal loading. Solutions based on the concept of the Winkler modulus and on linearly and elastic media. Pile testing. Micropiles.