Abstract:

Computation of earth pressure acting on retaining structures constitutes an important research subject in the field of geotechnical engineering. In many engineering practices, the retaining wall displacement causing the backfill yield sufficiently cannot take place so that the earth pressure may fall anywhere between active and passive earth pressures. Besides, due to compaction, the backfill is always dense and its shear resistance will decrease from peak resistance to residual state during shear. However, classic Rankine and Coulomb earth pressure theories can only evaluate the earth pressure at the active and passive state. And they cannot consider the effect of reduction of post-peak shear soil resistance on earth pressure. The development of earth pressure at the passive side with wall displacement is studied. On the basis a new methodology is developed to evaluate earth pressures at the passive side under any boundary strain constraint for a rigid retaining structure with translational movement. It can take into account the effect of wall displacement and the strength characteristic of dense sand on earth pressure. The agreement of calculated results with the experimental ones confirms the correctness of the proposed method.

Key words: earth pressure, wall displacement, passive side, dense sand, strength