rock retaining wall
 

rock retaining wall
i need to supply calc's for the design of a "rock retaining wall" (+/- 8 foot). i'm familiar with concrete cantilevered ret wall design, but have not designed a "rock ret wall," yet. i'm not finding any design guides (or codes) on the subject. the wall will retain the backyard fill of a single family residence in ca. the rock will be native to the site.
for the calc's: my current approach is to simply calc and select a bottom course rock size (capacity), greater than the demand. the demand will be calc'd based on the lateral pressure/load and multipling this by a 1.5 safety factor and adding in a 100 psf surcharge (total demand). the remaining higher rock courses will be calc'd similiarly. i'm not too concerned about soil bearing pressures or settlements, and i'll show filter fabric, drainage, and backfill on the plans.
pls comments on my approach, or give your experience with this type of design or construction?
try parsonswalls.com they are a construction company located in las vegas.
(i don't know if they are able to give you their engineered method.)
look at 'geo-web' reinforcement for the backfill.
the shape of the rocks must be a large factor. if you had rocks approaching spherical, they wouldn't have any stability.
tricalcim,
i recently asked a colleague if he knew what is the governing code for rock walls (i鈥檓 doing an inspection and evaluation of a several hundred rock walls). his response: yes, i do; it鈥檚 called the law of gravity.鈥?it sounds like you're on the right track.