5.

SLOPING SURFACE-PASSIVE EARTH PRESSURE

An equation for for a sloping backfill surface can be developed in the same way as for
an active case. The equation for may be expressed as: -

Where

6. COULOMB'S EARTH PRESSURE THEORY FOR SAND

Coulomb made the following assumptions in the development of his theory:
1. The soil is isotropic and homogeneous
2. The rupture surface is a plane surface
3. The failure wedge is a rigid body
4. The pressure surface is a plane surface
5. There is wall friction on the pressure surface
6. Failure is two-dimensional and
7. The soil is cohesion-less

Consider Fig. below

1. is the pressure face
2. The backfill surface is a plane inclined at an angle with the horizontal
3. is the angle made by the pressure face with the horizontal
4. is the assumed rupture plane surface, and
6. is the angle made by the surface with the horizontal.

If in Fig. is the probable rupture plane, the weight of the wedge per unit length of the wall may be
written as
 Combining the from the polygon shown above the following equation should be obtained

In Eq. above the only variable is and all the other terms for a given case are constants. Then

Substituting these values in equation above

( )

While by same procedure the passive lateral coefficient according to coulomb is

7. EARTHQUAKE EFFECT ON ACTIVE PRESSURE WITH GRANULAR BACKFILL
The Mononobe-Okabe method (1929, 1926) for dynamic lateral pressure on retaining
walls is a straight forward extension of the Coulomb sliding wedge theory. The forces that act
on a wedge under the active state are shown in Fig. below