Estimation of Active Earth Pressure Against Rigid Retaining Walls Considering Soil Arching Effects and Intermediate Principal Stress

Abstract

In this study, a novel analytical approach is proposed for the calculation of active earth pressure on rigid retaining walls considering the influence of intermediate principal stress and soil arching effects. According to the Mohr-Coulomb strength criterion, horizontal and vertical stresses as well as the angle between the maximum principal stress and the horizontal direction of backfill soil units were derived. Through calculations performed on a horizontal thin layer of backfill soil, average vertical stress and coefficient of active earth pressure were obtained. Finally, active earth pressure distribution, active earth force, and the height of application were calculated based on the static equilibrium equation. Furthermore, effects of internal friction angle, intermediate principal stress weight parameter, and wall–soil interface friction angle on coefficient of active earth pressure were investigated. The results indicate that a coefficient of active earth pressure is smaller than traditional calculation methods when the intermediate principal stress is considered without regard to soil arching effects. In addition, it is observed that the coefficient of active earth pressure decreases with the increase of the intermediate principal stress weight parameter, but increases with the increase of the wall–soil interface friction angle. In addition, when different values are given to weight parameters of intermediate principal stress, different backfill soil active earth pressure calculation models can be deduced. Moreover, this analytical model was verified and provided satisfactory results when compared with experimental results and previous studies, it also can predict the nonlinear earth pressure distribution under various modes of the soil yield criterion.