Active earth thrust by backfills subject to a line surcharge

Abstract

The current analytical solution for the thrust computation when a line of vertical surcharge acts on the backfill behind a wall assumes the soils to be simultaneously elastic, for calculating part of the thrust, and in the active state of failure, for calculating the remaining part of the thrust. This paper gives a coherent analytical solution based on Coulomb's approach. The position of the active thrust is also given in a simple analytical form and compared with the approximate solution of Terzaghi.Key words: active earth force, cantilever walls, lateral pressure, active condition.