Seismic pseudo-static active earth pressure of narrow granular backfill against an inverted T-type retaining wall under translational mode

Abstract

Rankine and Coulomb earth pressure theories are not applicable when the backfill behind the retaining wall is narrow. This paper analytically investigates the seismic active earth pressure of an inverted T-type retaining wall with narrow granular backfill under translational mode using a pseudo-static method for four typical seismic active failure mechanisms simulated with adaptive finite element software. Considering the failure surface reflections on soil–wall and soil–rock interfaces, four corresponding theoretical solutions using the limit equilibrium method, Rankine theory and the horizontal differential layer method are established to obtain the seismic active earth pressure of the backfill and the inclination angles of the failure surfaces. The derived formulae can be degenerated into either the static or the semi-infinite backfill situations. The proposed theoretical solutions are verified by comparisons with the finite element results and several existing theoretical solutions.