OPTIMAL DESIGN OF REINFORCED CONCRETE COUNTERFORT RETAINING WALLS

Abstract

Mathematical programming techniques have been used to minimize the cost ofreinforced concrete counterfort retaining wall.The study presents a formulation based onelastic analysis and the ultimate strength method of design as per ACI-M318code. Acomputer program is generated to handle the considered problem. The formulation ofoptimization problem has been made by utilizing the interior penalty function method as anoptimization method with the purpose of minimizing the objective function representing thecost of one-meter length of the counterfort retaining wall. This includes cost of concrete,reinforcement, and formwork. The design variables considered in this study are thedimensions and the amounts of reinforcement.It is found that the optimal spacing of counterforts equals about (0.214 to 0.366) of totalheight of wall. The optimum width of the base is found in the range (0.50 to 0.78) of the totalheight of the wall. Also the thickness of the stem is in the range(0.0284 to 0.0377) of the totalheight and it is less than half thickness of the base.