4 hours ago(This post was last modified: 58 minutes ago by Ken S.)
Something I've had issues with while using the software is accounting for cuts and fills on either side of a retaining wall. In some cases the grade on one side of the wall may differ by up to 18' and I cannot seem to find a good method for translating that to the program. I've tried various methods of creating the retaining wall as a feature surface, as a 1' wide path and even using the raise feature. Even playing with the side batter numbers the program seems to always leave a ditch on the higher side of the retaining wall that is difficult to calculate a cut or fill for. When trying it as a feature surface, using an outline of "Define Varying Levels" seems to do the best job as I can set the grade on the high side and the low side separately but the program still leaves a space unaccounted for. Setting the wall as a break line inside of another feature, i.e., a sub grade in a grass area, also seems to make the grades around the break line go bonkers. One thing I've been able to do about that is set point elevations in the areas that are causing trouble but most of the time I am just making an educated guess at those point elevations and the problem still remains.
I'm curious if others have had this issue and what they've done to combat it. Or maybe there is something in the program that I'm missing that would better account for the placement of a proposed retaining wall. If the "Path" feature allowed me to set differing elevations on either side of the wall, and also account for proposed contour lines, I feel like it would be a good solution for the problem I'm having here. One thing to note is that I do not have access to CAD files when I'm creating my models, so I'm doing this purely based on the information provided in the plans available for a specific job which are sometimes not the best.
I've attached an example of a job where I was having this issue for folks to review and possibly advise. One factor I am unsure of on this particular job is if there is any sort of reveal on the high side of the retaining wall at any point. Typically I would have to wait to win the bid for the job and obtain a shop drawing from my wall subcontractor before I have specific information on these things.
