Question

Explain why soil nailed walls, mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls, and externally stabilized walls with ground anchor have different lateral earth pressure distributions (15 points) 3.

Answer 1

The lateral earth pressure in sandy soils depends on the angle of internal friction. The angle of internal friction simply defined how well the particles of soil are interlocked. In soil nailed walls the soil gets compacted which increases the angle of internal friction and hence influence the lateral Earth pressure. In mechanically stabilized soils different methods like compaction vibrations etc yield different values angle of internal friction. Externally stabilized walls are loose as the soil structure is not altered here. Hence angle of internal friction will be less. So it will have less active and more passive earth pressure.

Moreover the unit weight increases for soil nailed walls and mechanically stabilized soils . This will influence the lateral Earth pressure as well.