• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.17-28
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• 2018

Important parameters for the stability checks of cantilever wall are the active earth pressure and the weight of soil above the heel of the base slab. If the heel length is so long enough that the shear zone bounded by the failure plane is not obstructed by the stem of the wall, the Rankine active condition is assumed to exist along the vertical plane which is located at the edge of the heel of the base slab. Then the Rankine active earth pressure equations may be theoretically used to calculate the lateral pressure on the vertical plane. However, in case of the cantilever wall with a short heel, the application of Rankine theory is not only theoretically incorrect but also makes the lateral earth pressure larger than the actual pressure and results in uneconomical design. In this study, for the cantilever wall with a short heel the limit analysis method is used to investigate the mechanism of development of the active earth pressure and then the magnitude and location of the resultants of the pressure and the weight of the soil above the heel are determined. The calculated results are compared with the existing methods for the stability check. In case of the cantilever wall with a short heel, the results by the Mohr circle method and Teng's method show max. 3.7% and 32% larger than those of the limit analysis method respectively.