Active Earth Pressure On Retaining Wall In Translation Mode

Translation is the most common displacement mode of rigid retaining wall. And two classic theories of earth pressures, namely Coulomb’s theory and Rankin’s theory, both study earth pressures on retaining wall which is in translation mode. In this paper, retaining wall in translation mode is also researched on its non-seismic active earth pressure and seismic active earth pressure. In non-seismic cases, the soil stress state behind the retaining wall is analyzed. In seismic cases, the pseudo-dynamic approach is used and improved in the calculation. Main resarch works are as follows.(1) The soil stress state behind the retaining wall is analyzed to modify the horizontal-soil stratum method, and then the new method to calculate the slip surface, the active earth pressure coefficient, the distribution of active earth pressure and the point of application of the resultant earth pressure is obtained. According to the assumption that soils on the the retaining wall approach the soil pressure limit equilibrium state, the method can only be used in the situation that soils on the retaining wall can slide, and in this situtiaon δ=(0-0.67)φ as the standard proposes.(2)With the consideration of the amplification effect of seismic accelerations, the pseudo-dynamic method is used to calculate the seismic active earth pressure coefficient, the distribution of seismic active earth pressure, the point of application of the resultant earth pressure, the critical depth and the slip surface respectively for cohesive soils. Then the influence of each parameter on calculation results is analyzed. During the calculation, the most unfavorable condition is searched by an optimization algorithm of time and the dipping angle of the slip surface.(3) With the consideration of the amplification effect of seismic accelerations, the pseudo-dynamic method is used to calculate the seismic active earth pressure coefficient, the distribution of seismic active earth pressure, the point of application of the resultant earth pressure and the slip surface respectively for cohesiveless soils. Then, the influence of each parameter on calculation results is analyzed. After that, the pseudo-dynamic method is improved by the combination with the horizontal-soil stratum method. Then the calculated items mentioned before are recalculated and the influence of each parameter is also reanalyzed by the improved method. Finally, the results calculated by the pseudo-dynamic method, the improved pseudo-dynamic method and M-O method are compared.