Retaining Wall Design Solutions

The Canterbury earthquakes caused significant damage to Christchurch City Council-owned retaining walls. SCIRT assessed approximately 3000 walls then designed repair or rebuild solutions for 440 walls within SCIRT’s scope of work.

SCIRT carried out initial condition assessments of approximately 3000 walls to determine which were within SCIRT’s scope of work (walls supporting or protecting the road network or other council infrastructure). 440 walls were subsequently reassessed and design solutions developed as required.

The attached papers and magazine article outline the damage observed to retaining walls, explain SCIRT’s design philosophy, detail some of its chosen refurbishment and repair solutions, and present a case study of a complex retaining wall rebuild, Cunningham Terrace in the port town of Lyttelton.

The technical papers were written by Louise Kendall Riches, a Chartered Professional Geotechnical Engineer from Aurecon, seconded to SCIRT between 2011 and 2017.

“Observed Earthquake Damage to Christchurch City Council Owned Retaining Walls and the Repair Solutions Developed” was presented at the 6th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, 1-4 November 2015.

“Repairing Christchurch City Council Owned Retaining Walls Damaged by the Christchurch and Canterbury Earthquakes” was presented at 12th Australia New Zealand Conference on Geomechanics, 22-25 February 2015.