Lateral Earth Pressure
Lateral Earth Pressure
This chapter will focus on the lateral stress exerted by the soil mass on a structure, such
as retaining walls, basement walls, and bulkheads.
Lateral Earth Pressure – it is the pressure that soil exerts in the horizontal direction.
Lateral earth pressure is an important parameters for the design of bridge abutment,
different types of retaining walls (such as gravity retaining walls, cantilever walls,
buttresses), sheet piles and other retaining structures.
It is important because it affects the consolidation behavior and strength of the soil also
because it is considered in the design of retaining walls, basements, tunnels etc.
THERE ARE 3 STATES OF LATERAL EARTH PRESSURE
1. AT REST (KO) – soil pressure which causes no wall movement.
Po = ko ɣ h
SITUATION 2: A vertical retaining wall 5m high is supporting a horizontal backfill having a unit
weight of 16.5 KN/m3 and a saturated unit weight of 19KN/m3. Angle of internal friction above
and below the water are 300 and 280 respectively. Ground water table is located 3m below the
ground surface.
a. Determine the total lateral pressure at the base of the wall.
b. Determine the at rest lateral earth force per meter length of the wall.
c. Determine the location of the resultant force.
d. Determine the at rest lateral earth force per meter length of the wall if it carries a surcharge
of 50KPa.
SITUATION 3: A retaining wall has a vertical back and is 8m high. The soil is a sandy loam of
1.75Mg/m3. It shows cohesion of 13KPa and an angle of internal friction of 200. The upper
surface of the fill is horizontal.
a. Determine the critical depth of the wall.
b. Determine the total thrust on the wall
c. Determine the resultant thrust on the wall if drains are locked and water builds up behind
the wall until the water table is 3m above the bottom of the wall. Saturated unit weight of soil
is 2Mg/m3.
SITUATION 4: A cantilevered retaining wall was originally designed with a base width of 3m
but it is actually constructed with a base width of 1.8m. The original design incorporated a
factor of safety of 2 and ignored passive pressure.
a. Compute the total lateral force acting on the wall.
b. Compute the location of the resultant lateral force from the bottom of the wall footing.
c. Compute the new factor of safety against overturning moment about the toe.
0.9m
WET SAND
ɣsat= 22.8 KN/m3
3.6m 𝜔=15%
WET SAND
ɣsat= 22.8 KN/m3
1.2m 𝜔=15%
1.8m
SITUATION 5: A vertical sheet pile supports a horizontal backfill having a height of 4.5m. The
backfill has a unit weight of 19.67KN/m3 and an angle of internal friction of 350.
a. Determine the required depth of penetration.
b. Compute the total active force on the sheet pile.
c. Compute the maximum bending moment in the cantilever sheet pile.