Retaining Walls: Active or Passive?

[sgsmith2_PE]

Does anyone know what kind of wording describes whether a retaining wall is active or passive? I know "free to rotate" maens active, but I 've seen a few problems that were passive and the wording was a bit confusing. From what I can tell, active is the most common, so hopefully most problems will be considered active. Btw, I'm taking construction in the pm, so I'm not an expert at this.

Thanks

 

[layad]

Does anyone know what kind of wording describes whether a retaining wall is active or passive? I know "free to rotate" maens active, but I 've seen a few problems that were passive and the wording was a bit confusing. From what I can tell, active is the most common, so hopefully most problems will be considered active. Btw, I'm taking construction in the pm, so I'm not an expert at this.
Thanks

Could you please post the wording specifically? A simple way to look at it is that if the wall is being pushed then it is active and if the wall pushes the soil, it is passive.

 

[EnvEngineer]

Be sure you know 'at rest' as well CERM gives some examples