surcharge

Definition

Extra load at the top of a wall: a driveway, parking, a pool, a building, a slope. It pushes harder than soil alone and takes the wall outside the manufacturers' height charts.

Sources

1. The OIQ counts the load above the wall (building, road, parking) among the factors that make an engineer necessary.

   Les murs de soutènement · Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec