Generalized solution to Coulomb’s seismic active earth pressure acting on rigid retaining wall with cohesive backfill and trial application for evaluation of seismic performance of retaining wall

Abstract

In this paper, a general solution for evaluating the Coulomb-type seismic active earth pressure that acts on a rigid retaining wall from the cohesive backfill soil is shown together with its derivation process. In the proposed solution, the mobilization of the cohesion on the failure plane in the backfill soil of the retaining wall and the associated increase in shear strength are considered in the pseudo-static limit equilibrium approach under the assumption that the cohesion is uniformly distributed in the backfill soil. The angle of the failure plane and the seismic active earth pressure calculated by the proposed equation completely agree with the calculation results by the trial wedge method, which shows the validity of the proposed solution. In addition, by combining the concept of the Modified Mononobe-Okabe method and the proposed equation, a calculation method for the seismic active earth pressure is proposed. It can consider the effect of backfill cohesion and can be applied even under a large seismic load. Furthermore, a series of trial analyses on the effect of backfill cohesion on the seismic performance of the retaining wall is also conducted using the proposed equation. A series of analyses using the case of a retaining wall damaged during the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu earthquake shows that the effect of backfill cohesion is significant in the seismic performance evaluation and the design of aseismic reinforcements.