A retaining wall can look like a simple wall and to the untrained eye it would appear that simply building a standard wall in front of a pile of soil will prove enough to prevent the slipping and movement of that soil. However, the reality is very different and there are numerous precise calculations and designs that must be made in order for a retaining wall to be able to effectively and efficiently do its job.
Depending on the forces that a retaining wall will have to endure there will be different points where it faces the real possibility of breaking or becoming damaged. If that wall is holding back tonnes of earth then such structural damage could lead to a major slip. If the retaining wall is protecting surrounding buildings or even a road the results could be catastrophic and may even lead to the loss of life.
Not only do engineers need to be able to determine the most likely stress points in a wall but they need to be able to calculate the most efficient means to prevent that stress point from becoming a major point of damage. Such calculations need to be precise and they need to be accurate. Safe is a software package that has been designed for this very application; to provide structural engineers with the computational assistance they require to create a safe and secure load bearing wall.
Safe works with both gravity retaining walls and embedded retaining walls to quickly and easily manage complex calculations. Obviously, there is no replacement for human engineers in such a project and it is, ultimately, the engineer that takes responsibility for the calculations used but Safe has proven time and time again to be a reliable and incredibly accurate tool to assist those engineers.
Safe is authored by Oasys Software and potential users can view a full list of its features and additional benefits at the www.oasys-software.com website. It will help to identify pressures and stresses and it will also assist in creating the design for a retaining wall that will be able to prevent these points from becoming a safety concern.
Visit www.Oasys-Software.com to see other software packages offered by Oasys Software, one of the leading names in software production over the past 30 years or more.
