There was a time when retaining wall software served a single purpose: stability checks. But modern engineering demands far more. Projects today cross borders and codes; every design must not only meet safety criteria but also withstand scrutiny from clients, regulators, and cost reviewers alike. In this landscape, tools built for narrow contexts — limited codes, specific wall types, isolated workflows — are beginning to show their age.

Legacy tools for mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall design have delivered consistent, reliable results within established frameworks such as AASHTO and NCMA — serving effectively for projects that fit within those well-defined standards. However, in an increasingly global and interconnected industry, the need for integrated, data-driven solutions is clear.

Rocscience’s RSWall is built for this modern landscape, uniting design and analysis across multiple retaining wall types — including segmental (block), gravity, cantilevered concrete, gabion, and abutments — within a single, adaptable platform. Designed to support global design environments, RSWall integrates advanced analysis, international standards, seamless workflow connections to Slide2 for compound and global stability, intelligent automation, and flexible reporting — transforming retaining wall design into a deeply interconnected, efficient experience.

Interface Design and Project Initialization

A tool’s interface often reflects its design philosophy. Legacy programs typically present focused workspaces built specifically around MSE wall analysis, offering familiar layouts aligned with AASHTO and NCMA methodologies.

RSWall introduces a broader, modern environment designed to accommodate multiple wall types and standards within a single project framework. Its welcome and project setup dialogs provide intuitive access to wall geometry, soil profiles, and design parameters from the very start.

Functionality That Defines the Future of Wall Design

Both legacy tools and RSWall contribute meaningfully to retaining wall design — one grounded in established methods, the other designed to meet evolving engineering challenges. The sections below highlight where RSWall expands the boundaries of what modern retaining wall software can achieve.

1. Supported Design Standards

Legacy tools focus on AASHTO ASD (1998, 2002), AASHTO LRFD (2007–2010, 2017–2020), and NCMA provisions for geosynthetic segmental retaining walls, making them most applicable to projects following U.S. design standards, though these methods are also referenced internationally.

RSWall supports a broader spectrum of international standards, including AASHTO LRFD and ASD, Eurocode LRFD and ASD, British Standards, Australian Standard (AS 4678), NCMA, and user-defined codes. This global coverage enables engineers to confidently work across jurisdictions, increasing versatility and applicability.

2. Failure Mode Analysis

Evaluation of critical failure modes is available in both RSWall and legacy tools. Traditional programs include fundamental checks such as bearing capacity, direct sliding, tensile strength, connection, and pullout, along with Bishop’s method for global stability and other approaches for internal stability.

RSWall expands this framework by assessing external stability (sliding, overturning, bearing), internal stability (internal sliding, crest toppling), and reinforcement strength (tensile strength, pullout, connection resistance). Results are systematically organized by reinforcement layer, providing a detailed view of performance by elevation.

RSWall also offers methodology flexibility: engineers can choose active earth pressure calculations (Coulomb, Rankine, generalized wedge), reinforcement tension methods (tieback wedge, coherent gravity), and passive resistance approaches (Caquot & Kerisel, Kerisel & Absi). This flexibility supports tailoring designs to project requirements, standards, or client preferences.

3. Loading Capabilities

Both legacy tools and RSWall support the application of external load, but the implementation differs in clarity and flexibility. Traditional software typically allows engineers to define uniform, strip, isolated, point, and horizontal loads through table-driven inputs.

RSWall integrates these load types directly into the model through an interactive system. Loads are visually associated with wall geometry, automatically factored according to the selected standard, and clearly displayed in both graphical outputs and reports. This approach ensures that engineers can streamline load management, verification, and validation more intuitively within the design environment.

4. Reinforcement Features

Legacy software supports common reinforcement types such as geogrids, geotextiles, and metallic strips or mats, with options to define a limited number of reinforcement types per wall. While effective for typical MSE design, the parameters are predefined, restricting customization.

RSWall offers broader reinforcement support, including geotextiles, geogrids, geostrips, metallic grids, and strips, with access to manufacturer libraries. Engineers can adjust coverage ratios, creep reduction factors, stiffness values, and soil interaction methods, and define connection strength as constant, linear, bilinear, or depth-varying. These properties are tied directly to the selected design standard, ensuring compliance.

Overall, RSWall provides more detailed control and standard-specific flexibility, while presenting results in a layer-by-layer format for greater transparency.

5. Block Manufacturer Libraries

RSWall’s block manufacturer libraries automatically populate geometric and material properties, including block dimensions, unit weight, block volume, interlayer shear type, minimum/maximum shear capacities, and friction angle. Visual diagrams are also provided to ensure accuracy in selecting the correct unit. By referencing official design manuals, RSWall aligns model properties with real-world products, reducing manual entry, error potential, and setup time.

With no built-in manufacturer libraries, legacy tools typically require users to manually define facing geometry and connection parameters. This makes RSWall a more efficient and practical option for engineers designing with proprietary block systems.

6. Support Designer

One of the newest features in RSWall is the Support Designer, an optimization engine that automates reinforcement layout design. This eliminates manual trial-and-error, enabling engineers to generate cost-effective reinforcement arrangements that satisfy safety and design requirements. Multiple design alternatives are produced, ranked by cost, and presented for comparison, accelerating design iterations and ensuring economical solutions.

7. Integration with Slide2

Legacy tools often rely on companion programs for global stability analysis, limited to circular slip surfaces and a less modern interface.

RSWall integrates seamlessly with Slide2, Rocscience’s industry-leading slope stability software. This empowers engineers to perform advanced compound and global stability analyses using both circular and non-circular slip surfaces. By linking directly with Slide2, RSWall ensures that external stability assessments are performed using state-of-the-art methods, while keeping the workflow streamlined for the user.

8. Tension Map Analysis

An additional advantage of the Slide2 integration is RSWall’s ability to incorporate Tension Map Analysis. This method, based on AASHTO 2024 and recent research, provides a more accurate representation of maximum tensile forces in reinforcements under compound stability conditions. Results from Slide2 tension maps can be imported into RSWall, ensuring that reinforcement design accounts for these effects without unnecessary overdesign. This next-generation method surpasses traditional approaches, enabling efficient, accurate reinforcement verification.

9. Reporting and Verification

Legacy tools provide graphical visualization of reinforcement layouts, slip surfaces, and force distributions, along with basic tabular exports. While useful, these outputs are limited in detail and do not consistently show intermediate calculations.

RSWall distinguishes itself with its advanced Report Generator, which produces professional, customizable reports with detailed hand calculations. These reports include not only final results but also the full sequence of calculations, intermediate steps, and the assumptions behind them. Each calculation is backed by references to relevant design standards, ensuring transparency for verification, peer review, and regulatory submission. This depth of documentation builds confidence for both engineers and stakeholders.

10. User Interface and Transparency

Legacy software often relies on spreadsheet-style input systems with supporting graphics that display reinforcement layouts, slip surfaces, and force distributions. While these offer transparency into stability checks, the presentation can be less intuitive and results are often fragmented across multiple dialogs and tables, requiring manual synthesis.

RSWall improves this approach with a modern and user-friendly interface. The program includes an interactive wall layout editor, integrated soil and groundwater definition, and clear visualization of results. Stability checks are presented in a layer-by-layer format, categorized by failure mode, location, loadcase, and CDR/ODR values. Each reinforcement layer is analyzed individually, revealing exactly where design demands are highest and which elements govern overall performance.

This structured and transparent workflow ensures engineers can quickly identify critical factors controlling the design while working within a cleaner, more intuitive environment. Combined with its advanced Report Generator, RSWall delivers both clarity during the analysis process and professionalism in the final deliverables.

Conclusion

In the evolving world of retaining wall design, legacy tools have served well within their regional scope but fall short of today’s global and multidisciplinary demands. RSWall bridges this gap with unmatched versatility — supporting multiple wall types, seamlessly integrating with Rocscience’s cutting-edge stability software, and delivering unparalleled transparency through detailed, professional reporting.

Beyond functionality, RSWall empowers engineers with features that transform design challenges into confident decisions. From its extensive block manufacturer libraries to its innovative Support Designer that optimizes reinforcement layouts, and next-generation Tension Map Analysis that ensures precision without overdesign, RSWall elevates accuracy, efficiency, and reliability at every turn.

Adaptability and insight are the cornerstones of modern retaining wall engineering, and RSWall delivers both. Whether your projects follow AASHTO, Eurocode, or custom standards, RSWall equips engineers to build confidently, justify designs transparently, and exceed today’s highest global expectations.

For forward-thinking engineers seeking a comprehensive, future-ready solution, RSWall isn’t just a tool; it’s the gold standard in retaining wall design.

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