The contractor for a new high-rise building must temporarily brace the large excavation for the basement. Our firm has been selected to design the bracing. The geotechnical report recommends that we...

The contractor for a new high-rise building must temporarily brace the large excavation for the basement. Our firm has been selected to design the bracing. The geotechnical report recommends that we design for an effective lateral soil pressure of 2.5 kN/m2 per meter of depth. The senior engineer on the team recommends that we use braces spaced every 5 m along the length of the excavation. Our job is to find the unfactored force generated on one brace at each level. Another team member will convert those applied forces into axial forces in the braces; the two will not be the same, since each brace is on at least a slight angle.