Introduction to Lateral Earth Pressure | Types of lateral earth pressure

Introduction to Lateral Earth Pressure:

One of the most important parameter for the design of bridge abutment, different types of retaining walls, sheet piles, braced excavations, underground tunnels or aqueducts and all the other earth retaining structures is Lateral earth pressure.  There were two classical theories on earth pressure, one of them was put forward by Coulomb in eighteenth century and the other was put forward by Rankine in nineteenth century.

There names are as follow:

• Coulombs (1776) Earth Pressure Theory
• Rankine’s (1876) Earth Pressure Theory

The best aspect of these theories is that they are still used in there original as well as modified forms to calculate the earth pressure.

Lateral earth pressure is further divided into three categories which are as follow:

1. At rest earth pressure
2. Active earth pressure
3. Passive earth pressure