Distinctive Effects of Horizontal At-Rest Pressure on Conventional Limit Pressure Results

Pressuremeter testing plays an important role in the design of foundations, where several parameters can be deduced from a single test result. Conventional and theoretical limit pressures can be interpreted from pressuremeter tests and are considered key to bearing capacity calculations and shallow foundation designs. Limit pressure can be evaluated using different methods, all of which show discrepancies in values obtained from the same tests. Horizontal at-rest earth pressure can similarly be deduced from different methods of analysis, which also show distinctive differences in results for the same tests. This research explored the important finding that the values of the conventional limit pressure experience considerable discrepancies when using different values of the horizontal at-rest pressure. Values calculated for conventional limit pressure showed considerable increases when increasing the value of the horizontal at-rest pressure, but there was no effect on the theoretical limit pressure.