Lessons Learned from Two Case Histories of Retaining Structures

In this paper two case histories are addressed. The first case history describes the underpinning and reinforcement of huge retaining walls due to the crossing of the old Rossio railway station building (1886) by an underground gallery (for the Lisbon Metro). A careful study was performed for this station in order to avoid unacceptable damages. These walls sustain an embankment on which the railway platforms were built. The second case history deals with the stabilization works of a landslide in Portugal. The lessons arising from technical and non technical factors related with slides are analysed, and the anchored retaining walls founded on micropiles to stabilize the hills are described. The field and laboratory tests are referred, as well as the geological-geotechnical model. For the both case histories the design of the retaining walls was based in Eurocode 7. Some results of the global stability analyses as well as the stress-strain analyses are presented. The seismic design was based in Eurocode 8. The results of anchorages tests and micropiles to calibrate the design values are presented