Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations TugboatEng on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Vertical Component of Live Load Surcharge

NotDeadYet

Structural
Joined
Mar 8, 2023
Messages
9
Location
US
I have asked around my office, read the applicable sections of LRFD-BDS, read multiple text books, and done multiple google searches but for some reason have not been able to find an explanation that I can wrap my head around to explain the idea of a vertical component of Live Load Surcharge.

Horizontal make perfect sense. If you put your fist on a lump of playdough and push down it expands out creating a lateral force against any obstacles to that expansion.

Where does the downward component come from though? If traffic is close enough there could be a downward force from Live Load, but that is a separate load. Is the vertical component of LS some sort of shear reaction where Live Load pushes down the soil beneath the lane and that pulls down the adjacent soil behind the wall? What is causing the vertical component of LS in real world terms? Apparently I need an explanation written in crayon.

Any help is appreciated...
 

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top