Gravity retaining walls are a type of retaining walls, they are mostly trapezoidal-shaped but they may be with broken back. That was the shape, but about the material, the gravity walls are often made off stone, concrete and other heavy materials.The gravity walls depend in its work on their heavy weight to resist the lateral earth pressure and the horizontal forces of the soil. As the other walls, the resultant of forces acting on the back of the wall must not exceeds the bottom third for avoiding the overturning, for that gravity walls can have leaning back embedded into the retained soil.
The gravity retaining walls need rigid footing to support the massive weight and ensure the required stability. In frost areas this is not an issue, no rigid footing is necessary as we can use Dry-stacked gravity walls which have a good flexibility. The similar wall here is the gabion which is a basket of steel filled with stones.
In the past, the retaining walls can get longer with the increase of massive concrete or stone weight, but now they can get longer by other ways such as soil nailing and crib walls. These walls can be strengthen with reinforcement bars or counterfort at the back
