Rossland Retaining Walls
Structural assessments and laser scanning supporting long-term retaining wall asset management.
Client: City of Rossland
Location: Rossland, BC
Project Type: Buildings
About This Project
Rossland’s steep mountain terrain creates unique infrastructure challenges, with retaining walls playing an important role in supporting roads, buildings, and other municipal assets. To better understand the condition of these structures and support long-term asset management, the City of Rossland engaged ISL to complete structural condition assessments of eleven retaining walls throughout the community.
ISL completed visual structural engineering assessments supported by laser scanning to establish accurate baseline geometry for each wall. With no existing drawings or design criteria available and limited information about wall geometry, the scans allowed the team to document wall dimensions, alignments, and surface conditions while creating a reliable baseline for future monitoring and engineering evaluation.
The assessments focused on identifying visible structural deficiencies and potential life-safety concerns. ISL compiled the findings into a detailed condition assessment report with recommendations for monitoring, further evaluation, repair, or replacement. Conceptual cost estimates were also developed for each wall to support the City’s capital planning and budgeting.
The project was built on ISL’s previous work with the City, which included an inspection program covering 38 retaining walls of various construction types. Together, these assessments have provided the City with practical information to prioritize maintenance and rehabilitation and support informed investment in its retaining wall infrastructure.
Challenges
- Challenge: No existing drawings or design criteria for the retaining walls made it difficult to assess the original engineering intent, load-bearing capacity, and potential vulnerabilities
- Challenge: Wall geometry was unknown which made it challenging to evaluate their stability and performance
Solutions
- Solution: Design checks on existing walls are excluded from the scope. The evaluation was done based on visual condition assessment only, which provided critical insights into maintenance records
- Solution: All walls are point cloud scanned to provide baseline geometry allowing for the accurate mapping of wall dimensions, alignments, and surface conditions, establishing a reliable baseline for future monitoring and engineering evaluations
Key Features
- Structural assessments of 11 retaining walls
- Laser scanning and paint cloud documentation
- Baseline geometry for future monitoring
- Structural deficiency and life-safety evaluations
- Repair and replacement recommendations
- Conceptual cost estimates for capital planning
