I was wondering what the angle of friction would be for a loose crushed stone. I am looking at designing a wall that will retain this material and I can’t seem to find the information in my textbooks or on this site.
What I am looking for is what I would call the angle of internal friction. This way I can calculate the active pressure acting on the wall and appropriately size the footing and stem of the wall.
Crushed stone I think 40 to even 55 angle of internal friction or more but codes for construction (never?) allow to go as high. I think the higher value I have seen as acceptable for calculations is 40 to 41. AASHTO and others, again, I think to remember, limited the angle for non coherent backfills to 34 deg angle of inner friction.
keep in mind that loose crushed stone will settle and has pretty substantial voids (so adjacent soil may wash in to it). for the settlement of say #57 stone, i use 1" per 1' of loose #57 stone as an estimate. i'd use caution when trying to assign phi to any poorly compacted materials.
Just so that everyone is aware, this material is being stored behind a cantilever concrete wall. It is not being used as backfill. There will be no other soil infiltration into this material.