Seismic Active Earth Pressure on the Back of Battered Retaining Wall Supporting Inclined Backfill

Abstract

Knowledge of seismic active earth pressure behind a rigid retaining wall and its point of application are very important to the design of retaining walls in earthquake-prone regions. This paper presents a detailed study on the seismic active earth pressure and its point of application behind a nonvertical, rigid retaining wall supporting inclined, cohesionless backfill, using pseudo-dynamic analysis that is more realistic to representing the time and phase difference within the backfill. A planar failure surface is considered in the analysis. The effects of soil and wall friction angle, wall and backfill surface inclination, and horizontal and vertical earthquake acceleration on the active earth pressure have been explored. Results are presented in both tabular and graphical nondimensional form, including comparison with other available methods to highlight the realistic nonlinearity of seismic active earth pressure distribution.