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Geotechnical Engineering 2
CIVE1129
RMIT Academic staff:
Offering Coordinator: Dilan Robert (PhD)
Course Coordinator: Abbas Mohajerani (PhD)

Earth Pressures
Textbook: Soil Mechanics and Foundations, Muni Budhu,3rd
edition, 2011

The materials used in these 30 slides are copyright and are from the textbook “Soil Mechanics and
Foundations”, by Muni Budhu, 3rd. edition, 2011, with copyright John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (as outlined in the
book). They are produced for the teaching staff and they should be made available only as a PDF file in a
protected local directory to students who have enrolled in Geotechnical Engineering 2 (CIVE1129).

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Learning outcomes

Describe the types and failure modes of

retaining walls
Visualise and describe the basic concepts on
lateral earth pressures
Determine lateral earth pressures.

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Importance

• Earth-retaining structures are abundant in the man-

made environment.
• a geotechnical engineer must ensure that the wall is
stable under anticipated loadings.

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TYPES OF RETAINING WALLS AND MODES OF
FAILURE

• Rigid retaining walls

• Flexible retaining walls
Simple

see CH 11 of
textbook

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Key terms

• Gravity retaining wall is a massive concrete wall relying on its mass to

resist the lateral forces from the retained soil mass.
• Flexible retaining wall or sheet pile wall is a long, slender wall relying on
passive resistance and anchors or props for its stability.
• Mechanical stabilized earth is a gravity-type retaining wall in which the soil
is reinforced by thin reinforcing elements (steel, fabric, fibers, etc.).

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Types of rigid retailing walls

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Types of flexible retaining walls
Flexible retaining wall or sheet pile wall is a long, slender wall relying on
passive resistance and anchors or props for its stability.

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Failure modes for rigid retaining walls

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Failure modes for flexible retaining walls

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Key terms

• Backfill is the soil retained by the wall.

• Earth pressure coefficient at rest (K0) is the ratio h’/v’ in a homogeneous
natural soil deposit (Chapter 7, page 161).
• Active earth pressure coefficient (Ka) is the ratio between the lateral and
vertical principal effective stresses at the limiting stress state when an earth-
retaining structure moves away (by a small amount) from the backfill
(retained soil).
• Passive earth pressure coefficient (Kp) is the ratio between the lateral and
vertical principal effective stresses at the limiting stress state when an earth-
retaining structure is forced against a soil mass.

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Earth Pressure at Rest

For normally consolidated clays and granular soils,

K0 = 1 – sin ’

For overconsolidated clays,

K0,overconsolidated = K0,normally consolidated OCR0.5

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Rankine’s Active and Passive earth pressures

What happens to the

RMIT University©Sep.
lateral effective stresses
on elements A and B
when the wall is rotated?
The vertical stress will
not change on either
element, but the lateral
effective stress on
element A will be
reduced, while that for
element B will be
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PASSIVE ACTIVE

Slip Plaines at active and passive zones

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Rankine’s Active and Passive earth pressures

(For a smooth, vertical wall with a horizontal surface)

[ h ' ]active  K A v '

1  sin 
KA   tan 2 ( 45   / 2)
1  sin  KA = Rankine
coefficient of Active

[ h ' ] passive  K P v ' Earth pressure

1  sin  Kp = Rankine
KP   tan 2 ( 45   / 2) coefficient of
1  sin 
Passive Earth
pressure

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Rankine’s Earth Pressures in Cohesive and Granular soils

[ h ' ]active  K A v '2c K A

[ h ' ] passive  K P v '2c K P

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Mohr’s circles at rest, active and passive conditions.

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Rotation required to mobilise active and passive resistance.

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Variation of active and passive lateral earth pressures, hydrostatic
pressure, and a uniform surface stress with depth.

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Example 15.1

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EXAMPLE Lateral Earth Pressure and Force
Porewater pressure, u

NB: This plot is currently not in the textbook

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RANKINE’S LATERAL EARTH PRESSURE FOR A
SLOPING BACKFILL AND A SLOPING WALL FACE

• Rankine used the stress states of a soil mass to

determine the lateral earth pressures on a frictionless
wall.
• The active and passive lateral earth forces are inclined
at ξa and ξp, respectively, from the normal to the wall
face. If the wall face is vertical, the active and passive
lateral earth forces are parallel to the soil surface.

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COULOMB’S EARTH PRESSURE THEORY

• Coulomb (1776) proposed that a condition of limit

equilibrium exists through which a soil mass behind a
vertical retaining wall will slip along a plane inclined an
angle θ to the horizontal.
• He then determined the slip plane by searching for the
plane on which the maximum thrust acts.

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Coulomb’s Earth Pressure Theory

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Problem 15.4
Calculate active
pressures:
a) For soil layer
1 (4m)
b) for soil
layers 1 and
2 (7 m)
c) For soil
layers 1, 2
and 3 (12m)
Find the passive
earth pressure
distribution for
soil layer 3

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