The calculation of passive soil resistance

A method is presented for the rapid calculation of passive pressure, giving values very close to those obtained by rigorous application of plasticity theory. The method will predict the soil resistance of a plane wide structure extending at least up to the soil surface having any rake angle lying between 5° and 170°. The soil is assumed to be a rigid-plastic Coulomb material having cohesion and self-weight and any angle of internal friction between 0 and 45°. The soil interface properties of tangential adhesion and friction are accounted for, as is any value of uniform vertical surcharge pressure acting on the horizontal soil surface. The method uses dimensionless passive coefficients which are substituted into a basic additive equation. These coefficients are obtained by interpolation between values read from a set of charts. These charts are based on data obtained from computer programs using Sokolovski's method. The resistance coefficients are shown to be functions of the soil numbers c/yz and q/yz and...