CE648 Applied Soil Mechanics

Assignment 2 Date of Submission: Thursday 8th February 2018

Full Marks: 15

1. An unyielding retention system of height 6m is supporting a backfill having a unit weight 18

kN/m3 and Poisson’s ratio 0.3. A point load of magnitude 100 kN acts at a distance of 2m
from the face of the wall. What would be the at-rest earth pressure at the back-face of the
wall and at a depth of 0.5m from the ground surface? (5)

2. Referring to the adjacent figure, the following values are provided: H = 5 m, H1 = 2 m, H2 =

3 m, γ = 15.5 kg/m3, γsat = 18.5 kg/m3, φ'1 = φ'2 = 34, c'1 = c'2 = 0, q = 20 kN/m2, and OCR
= 1.0. The backfill also supports a strip load (25 kN/m2) of width 1 m, located at a distance
of 1.5 m from the wall. Considering the wall to be unyielding, determine the net lateral at-
rest earth pressure distribution on the wall. Also determine the net at-rest lateral earth force
per unit length of the wall, and its position of action from the base. (10)