Internal design of reinforced soil walls requires the estimation of reinforcement loads, which requires the determination of horizontal stress acting over tributary area of each reinforcement. Maximum horizontal stress at each depth depends on the vertical stress and lateral earth pressure coefficient at that particular depth. There are different internal design methods for reinforced soil walls, e.g., Coherent Gravity Method, Simplified Method, and Stiffness Method, which were developed based on different assumptions. These methods suggest different lateral earth pressure coefficient according to the global stiffness of the soil and they utilizes different approaches to calculate vertical stress at each reinforcement depth. Coherent Gravity Method assumes the reinforced soil mass is rigid and the overturning moment caused by the lateral load acting at the back of the reinforced zone increase the vertical stress at reinforcement level. On the other hand, Simplified Method and Stiffness Methods neglect the overturning effect and assume vertical stress is equal to soil overburden over the reinforcement for extensible reinforcement. This paper compares existing methods of calculating vertical stress within the wall, and proposes a simple equation, which considers overturning effect without the need to determine eccentricity separately.
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