Active Earth Pressure against Inverted T-Type Retaining Walls under Translation Mode

Abstract

Inverted T-type retaining walls are widely used in civil engineering. Classic earth pressure theories cannot accurately predict the failure mechanism of soils behind inverted T-type retaining walls. Under wall translation mode, two failure surfaces are generated from the upper and lower sides of the heel. By using adaptive finite-element limit analysis (AFELA), numerical results show that when the failure surface intersects with the wall stem, a new failure surface occurs due to soil–wall frictional resistance. In this paper, the phenomenon of stress rotation caused by the soil–wall interface friction is investigated. The influence of the third failure surface on the analytical solution is further considered. An extensive parametric analysis is employed to study the effect of the geometric parameters of inverted T-type retaining walls, soil–wall interface frictional angles, and internal frictional angles of backfill on the failure mechanism of backfill. Based on the limit equilibrium analysis method of the horizontal differential layer, a calculation model for active earth pressure against inverted T-type retaining walls under translational displacement modes is established. Compared with previous methods, the present model is suitable for both long heels and short heels and considers the failure mechanism of soils with higher accuracy. In addition, the application point of active thrust and distribution of earth pressure are provided as references for wall design.