Abstract: Assuming the internal friction angles of backfills and their displacements are in nonlinear, to adopt the calculation model that was put forward by the author, combined with the indoor mode experiment, the authors calculate and analyze the passive earth pressure acted on the retaining wall in different movement modes: translation (i.e. Mode T), rotation around a certain point under the wall-bottom (i.e. Mode RBT) and rotation around some point above the wall top (i.e. Mode RTT). The analysis results show that the calculated values and the test values can agree with each other very well in the three ways of the distribution of soil pressure strength along the wall height, the values of the total earth pressure and the location of the action point of the total earth pressure. It is shown that: (1) It is feasible to use the calculation model to calculate the passive earth pressure in different movement modes. (2) For the agreement degree between the calculated values and the test values of the soil pressure strength distribution, it is the best in Mode RBT; next is Mode T; it is relatively the worst in Mode RTT. (3) For the required displacement to reach the Rankine's passive earth pressure force, it is the minimum in Mode T; next is in Mode RTT; it is relatively the maximum in Mode RBT. (4) For the location of the action point of the total earth pressure, in Mode T, those are all at the 1/3 wall’s height from the wall bottom; in Mode RBT, those are all over the 1/3 wall’s height; in Mode RTT, those are all below the 1/3 wall’s height; and in RBT and RTT mode locations of the action point all gradually trend to the 1/3 height place from the wall bottom with the value of n (the ratio of the distance from rotation point to retaining wall proximal endpoint to wall's height) increasing gradually. These views are completely consistent with the fact.

Key words: displacement effect, movement mode, unlimited state, earth pressure