In 1997 and 1998 an original special experimental equipment was designed and developed including bicomponent tensors, a large stand and others. The retaining wall of the stand is measured and can be arbitrarily moved. In 1998 and the first half 1999 was made the first medium-term experiment with a mass of very dry flowing sand. was made which has brought some unexpected and new results. The paper presents information about the research and the experiment and shows the origin of slip surfaces due to three types of movements of the retaining wall. Finally, the paper presents measured pressures.
No satisfactory procedures for the computation of dynamic earth pressures are known and the knowledge used for the computation of static earth pressures does not correspond with the significance of the problem, either. Its complicated character and the state of the solution of earth (lateral) pressures is testified to also by the fact that the valid preliminary issue of EUROCODE 7–1 (1994) defines formulae for the active pressure at rest (J.ky 1944) and neglects the passive pressure at rest (Pru_ka 1973). An advanced numerical model based on a comprehensive nonlinear dependence, has shown that the Code limit movements {Art.8.5.4/2} do not correspond with mobilization of the peak shear strength (Koudelka 1996, 1998a, 1999b). Then the Code presents (Annex G) the sample procedure to determine the extreme (peak) values of earth pressures for the case of peak shear strength mobilization. It gives the coefficients K for the effect of material weight in 9 diagrams depending on frictional and geometrical parameters. The special numerical model of earth pressures on curved slip surfaces is presented in the paper no. 0553. The paper no. 0565 sums the present results in drafting of a more general theory of earth pressures.
