Abstract:

On the basis of coulomb’s concept that the earth pressure against the back of a retaining wall is due to the thrust exerted by a sliding wedge of soil between the back of the wall and a plane which passes through the bottom edge of the wall and has an inclination of θ, the basic analysis equation are set up by considering the equilibrium of the forces on an thin-layer element of the wedge. By using the equilibrium equation of the moments on the whole wedge, The lateral coefficient of earth pressure , the earth pressure distribution along the wall back, the resultant force of earth pressure and the application point of the resultant force are obtained. Finally, a case study is given to verify the proposed method. The results show that the calculation values are very consistent with the measured values. It is indicated that this calculating method is feasible and reliable.

Key words: soil mechanics, active earth pressure, thin-layer element method, rigid retaining wall