Lateral earth pressure

About: Lateral earth pressure is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5334 publications have been published within this topic receiving 62552 citations.

Pseudo-dynamic analysis of reinforced soil wall subjected to oblique displacement

Abstract: Numerous pseudo-static methods are available for assessing the seismic stability of reinforced soil walls. These methods consider the dynamic effects of earthquake loading by adding a pseudo-static seismic earth pressure component to the static earth pressure force; they do not consider the effects of time or of body waves travelling through the wall. Hence these approaches provide an approximate and conservative solution. This paper considers an alternative pseudo-dynamic method proposed by Steedman and Zeng, and further modified by Choudhury and Nimbalkar, that considers the above effects. Most of the available methods for analysing the stability of reinforced soil walls consider only the axial resistance of the reinforcement to pullout. However, the failure surface in a reinforced soil structure nearly always intersects the reinforcement layers obliquely, and thus subjects the reinforcement to an oblique force imposed by the sliding mass of soil. The seismic stability of reinforced soil walls is invest...

Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation on Concrete Box Culverts in Trenches

Abstract: Concrete culverts in trenches have been widely used in expressways. Problems frequently take place because of improperly estimated vertical earth pressures on culverts. Different codes have been used in China to estimate the design load on culverts. In this study, a full-scale experiment and FEM simulation were conducted to evaluate the variation of vertical earth pressures and soil arching in backfill and to examine the accuracy of the methods recommended by different design codes including the prevailing Chinese General Code for Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts based on the linear earth pressure theory. The measured vertical earth pressures from the experiment were compared with those from the current theoretical methods. The variations of foundation pressure and settlement were also analyzed. The FEM simulation investigated the key influencing factors on the vertical earth pressures including the height of the embankment fill, the width of the trench, the slope angle of the trench, the dimensions of the culvert, the properties of the backfill, and the elastic modulus of the foundation soil. This research reveals that soil arch formed when the backfill on the culvert reached a certain height, but it was unstable. The coefficient of the vertical earth pressure on the top of the culvert was significantly different from that recommended by the Chinese General Code for Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts.

Laboratory instrument for measuring lateral soil pressure and swelling pressure

Abstract: A new instrument which allows the measurement of lateral pressure and lateral swelling pressure of a soil sample in the laboratory, either with or without lateral strain, is presented. Results of tests carried out with this apparatus are discussed and compared with results of similar tests using other instruments.

Out-of-Plane Flexural Performance of GFRP-Reinforced Masonry Walls

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to assess the out-of-plane flexural performance of masonry walls that are reinforced with glass fiber-reinforced polymers (GFRPs) rods, as an alternative for steel rebars. Eight 1 m×3 m full-scale walls were constructed using hollow concrete masonry units and tested in four-point bending with an effective span of 2.4 m between the supports. The walls were tested when subjected to increasing monotonic loads up to failure. The applied loads would represent out-of-plane loads arising from wind, soil pressure, or inertia force during earthquakes. One wall is unreinforced; another wall is reinforced with customary steel rebars; and the other six walls are reinforced with different amounts of GFRP reinforcement. Two of the GFRP-reinforced walls were grouted only in the cells where the rods were placed to investigate the effect of grouting the empty cells. The force-deformation relationship of the walls and the associated strains in the reinforcement were monitored throughout the t...

Soil arching and load transfer mechanism for slope stabilized with piles

Abstract: In this study, the effects of pile spacing and pile head fixity on the moment and lateral soil pressure distribution along slope stabilizing piles are investigated. A slice from an infinitely long row of piles with fixed pile tip in an inclined sand bed was simulated with an experimental test setup. Surficial soil displacements were monitored and relative displacements between soil particles were determined by recording time-lapse images during the test in order to observe the soil arching mechanism on the soil surface. The load transfer process from moving soil to piles and behavior of soil around piles were observed and evaluated by the different test setups. It was observed that decrease in pile spacing causes an increase of load carried per pile. This behavior, which was significantly influenced by the pile head boundary conditions, can only be explained by soil arching that existed between the piles along their lengths.