Active Earth Pressure on Walls with Base Projection

This paper presents the effect of base projection on the active earth pressure. It was found that the failure wedge is bounded by two surfaces, one of them intersecting into the soil and the ground surface and the other one intersecting the wall. The inclination of the first surface is independent of the wall friction and the length of base projection. It is noted that for the case of level backfill and no wall friction, the Rankine solution may be always applied on the vertical plane connecting the heel with the ground surface, regardless of the base projection. These and other observations are discussed.