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New procedure for active earth pressure calculation in cohesive-frictional soil

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Abstract

A new simplified formulation is suggested to determine active earth pressure against a retaining wall undergoing rotation about the base in the cohesive-frictional soil based on the limit equilibrium method. It takes into account the effect of the cohesion, unit weight, and wall height for the rupture angle and angle of the reaction force. The accuracy of the proposed method is checked by comparing the experimental results and other theoretical methods. The comparison results show that the proposed method is appropriate for predicting the distribution of active earth pressure and the rupture angle in the cohesive-frictional soil with rotational displacement. Additionally, a simplified formulation was derived to predict the depth of tension cracks in the backfill considering the influence of the soil-wall interface friction angle, rupture angle, rotational displacement, and wall height. A parametric study was undertaken to access the effects of the wall height, cohesion, internal friction angle, and soil-wall interface friction angle on the rupture angle and tension cracks by the proposed method and numerical method. The results show that the rupture angle and tension cracks is closely related to the wall height.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included within the article.

Abbreviations

H :

height of retaining wall

s :

top displacement of retaining wall

z :

depth of tension cracks

b :

width of the tension cracks zone

h :

depth of retaining wall

β :

angle between slip surface and horizontal plate

ε :

angle of inclination of retaining wall

γ :

unit weight

c :

cohesion strengths

φ :

internal friction angle

α :

the angle between the reaction force (R) and normal BC plane

δ :

soil-wall interface friction angle

ψ :

angle between force G and Q

λ 1, λ 2 :

coefficient

G :

weight of slip wedge (EBCD)

R :

reaction resultant forces

Q :

total lateral earth pressure

T 1, T 2 :

shear force along the BC and AB plane

N 1, N 2 :

normal forces of the contact surface

p a :

active earth pressure

p am :

lateral earth pressure

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41272333) and National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China (Grant 2011CB013501).

https://github.com/jjf524973903/New-procedure-for-active-earth-pressure-calculation-in-cohesive-frictional-soil

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geo-hazard Prevention and Geo-environment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, 610059, Chengdu, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Junfeng Jiang, Qihua Zhao, Shuairun Zhu & Wanen Zhang

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  1. Junfeng Jiang
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  2. Qihua Zhao
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  3. Shuairun Zhu
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  4. Wanen Zhang
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Correspondence to Qihua Zhao.

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Responsible editor: Zeynal Abiddin Erguler

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Jiang, J., Zhao, Q., Zhu, S. et al. New procedure for active earth pressure calculation in cohesive-frictional soil. Arab J Geosci 14, 1062 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07381-z

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