Seismic Active Earth Pressure for Inclined Rigid Retaining Walls Considering Rotation of the Principal Stresses with Pseudo-Dynamic Method

Abstract

Considering the effects of the rotation of the principal stresses, time effects, and wall–back inclination, a new solution for the seismic active failure angle is derived by the pseudodynamic method, according to the total force equilibrium of the sliding soil mass. Through a horizontal differential layer method, new differential equations of the normal seismic active earth pressure and its coefficient for an inclined rigid retaining wall are obtained under translation. Then, using numerical solutions for ordinary differential equations based on the Runge–Kutta method, influences of parameters (i.e., the vibration period time, wall–back inclination, internal friction angle of backfill, wall-soil friction angle, height of wall, amplitude of horizontal, and vertical seismic acceleration coefficient) on the seismic active failure angle are discussed, as well as the seismic active earth pressure and its coefficient. Moreover, the seismic active earth pressures and its coefficients calculated by proposed method are compared with those by existing pseudostatic and pseudodynamic methods. The results showed that the seismic active failure angle, seismic active earth pressure and its coefficient all change periodically with the time, and the distribution of seismic active earth pressure is nonlinear along the wall height. The seismic active earth pressure and its coefficient found in this paper are larger than those found using existing pseudostatic methods.