The objective of this course is to assist a licensed design professional, forensic structural engineers, consulting engineers or/and a licensed general contractor to deeply know, understand and analysis of the signs, and the real causes behind failure of retaining walls in details and how to avoid. Generally, the term retaining wall failure do not referred to the total failure or collapse but rather describes signs and indications by which failure possibilities and wall instability could be predicted and can be saved if dealt with properly. Retaining wall sliding, toppling, overturning are types of total collapses that cannot be rehabilitated, therefore rebuilding the wall the sole solution for these failures. However, full collapse of retaining wall is unlikely in addition to show signs of problems that could be observed and rehabilitate the wall before the wall fail entirely. By and large, most of retaining walls could be rehabilitated and saved after evaluating and specifying reasons of deficiencies.

Learning Objectives:

• Signs of retaining wall failure
• Common causes for retaining wall failure
• Failure modes of a retaining wall
• How to prevent retaining wall failure?