Rankine theory

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Rankine's theory (maximum-normal stress theory), developed in 1857 by William John Macquorn Rankine,^[1] is a stress field solution that predicts active and passive earth pressure. It assumes that the soil is cohesionless, the wall is frictionless, the soil-wall interface is vertical, the failure surface on which the soil moves is planar, and the resultant force is angled parallel to the backfill surface. The equations for active and passive lateral earth pressure coefficients are given below. Note that φ' is the angle of shearing resistance of the soil and the backfill is inclined at angle β to the horizontal.

${\displaystyle K_{a}={\frac {\cos \beta -\left(\cos ^{2}\beta -\cos ^{2}\phi \right)^{1/2}}{\cos \beta +\left(\cos ^{2}\beta -\cos ^{2}\phi \right)^{1/2}}}*cos\beta }$

${\displaystyle K_{p}={\frac {\cos \beta +\left(\cos ^{2}\beta -\cos ^{2}\phi \right)^{1/2}}{\cos \beta -\left(\cos ^{2}\beta -\cos ^{2}\phi \right)^{1/2}}}*cos\beta }$

For the case where β is 0, the above equations simplify to

${\displaystyle K_{a}=\tan ^{2}\left(45-{\frac {\phi }{2}}\right)\ }$

${\displaystyle K_{p}=\tan ^{2}\left(45+{\frac {\phi }{2}}\right)\ }$