Villa Retaining Wall Repair, Marseillan, France

Project Overview

This existing 2.7m high boundary retaining wall, located at a Villa in the desirable town of Marsellian in the South of France, was displaying signs of stress cracking and was beginning to fail due to a build-up of pore water pressure behind the wall. Immediate remedial work was needed to repair the cracks and ground anchors with a drainage solution were required to stabilise the wall to prevent further movement or potential collapse.

Solution

The wall was cored to enable two rows of ground anchors to be driven to a depth of 6m on staggered 1.8m centres. As access in front of the wall was restricted all anchors had to be installed using hand held hydraulic equipment. The upper row of anchors were installed at a declining angle of 20° from the horizontal. The bottom row on anchors, which incorporated ‘Active’ Plati-Drains were installed at a slight inclination to allow any trapped water to escape reducing pore water pressure in the future.