Generalized analytical expression for dynamic passive earth pressure from c–φ soil backfills

Abstract

The dynamic passive earth pressure as a resistance to the retaining wall movement is often required for the design of retaining walls, whose lower parts are embedded in the ground. This technical note presents the derivation of a generalized analytical expression for the total dynamic passive earth pressure from the c–φ soil backfills on the rigid retaining walls in terms of dynamic earth pressure coefficients. The expression is generalized because the derivation considers most practical parameters related to the wall geometry, soil backfill, and loadings, such as wall height, wall-backfill face inclination, backfill slope angle, wall friction, wall-backfill adhesion, cohesion and angle of shearing resistance of backfills, surcharge, and both horizontal and vertical seismic loadings. The development of an explicit expression for the critical inclination of the failure plane within the soil backfill is also presented for the generalized case. It is shown that the generalized analytical expressions result in simpler cases reported previously in the literature for several static and dynamic field conditions.