Free Retaining Wall Calculator

SkyCiv’s easy-to-use Retaining Wall Calculator also allows engineers calculate a number of important design results for Cantilever Retaining Walls. These results include calculations for sliding, bearing and overturning and the factory of safety for each result. Each of these stability calculations are for concrete retaining walls and are a critical part of any retaining wall design.

Thanks to the flexible inputs and easy user interface of, the same properties can be calculated for a model that represents a gravity retaining wall. Let us know if you’d like to receive updates as we add support for more wall types. The retaining wall base provides vertical pressure (in addition to the soil weight) provides the gravity force to resists the overturning moments and sliding forces of the retaining wall.

The Retaining Wall Calculator provides detailed calculation and reporting for sliding, bearing and overturning failure required for any retaining wall design. These capacities are calculated in accordance with The Reinforced Concrete Design Handbook, ACI SP-17(14), Vol. 2. The retaining wall Sliding calculations are performed to check that the concrete retaining wall has enough capacity from any lateral force that may cause sliding. Similarly, any forces at the top of the stem would create a moment force, the overturning calculations ensure that the structure is safe against such actions. Finally, the retaining wall bearing calculations are to ensure the soil has enough bearing capacity to withstand the forces from the retaining wall.

All calculations come with a PDF detailed design report which lets engineers review the step by step calculations made.

SkyCiv offers a wide range of Cloud Structural Analysis and Design Software for engineers. As a constantly evolving tech company, we’re committed to innovating and challenging existing workflows to save engineers time in their work processes and designs.

For a more detailed walkthrough, check out our Retaining Wall Design walkthrough tutorial and video.

Next, define the properties for Soil Type, Name, Color, Texture, Friction Angle, and Unit Weight of you chosen materials. After these have been defined, you can set the material for the Active, Passive, and Substructure zones.

The next step is to add the distributed loading to the calculator. A “Uniform” load is used to cover the entire length of the Active Zone, a “Patch” load will run from a starting to stopping location in the zone, and a “Linear” load will be defined at a specific point along the zone. After the loading has been added, it is time to move onto the final step!

Once all the inputs have successfully added to the calculator, the calculator will analyze the results and return results to the inputs. Should the design be failing for any parameters, the user can go back and update their design and reanalyze. The full version of SkyCiv Retaining Wall also allows users to print a final detailed report of all their calculations to accompany their results.