Abstract
Knowledge of earth pressure and failure behavior of backfill soil is important to the design of retaining wall, especially in earthquake-prone region. However, most common methods, such as the Mononobe-Okabe method, only consider the equilibrium of forces, and ignore the failure behavior of backfill soil. To research the seismic response of soil-wall interaction system, the current study proposes an approximate analysis model based on three methods which are the pseudo-dynamic method, free field solution, and Mohr-Coulomb criterion. In this new model, the assumption about the shape of slip surface is not needed any more. The time-dependent earth pressure which depends on the motion pattern of the retaining wall is derived on the basis of fundamental solution of the free-field of backfill soil. Moreover, the evolution process of failure zone in backfill soil is determined by using the Melan’s basic solution. Present analysis model is fit for different motion patterns of wall. In addition, earth pressure of both active and passive state can be determined by the present model. Through the simple numerical calculation, not only the time-dependent distribution of earth pressure, but also the visualized failure zone is obtained.
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Yang, H.Q., Huang, D. Analysis on the progressive failure process of backfill soil under seismic loads. KSCE J Civ Eng 18, 113–123 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-013-0300-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-013-0300-6