Lateral Earth Pressure

27/12/2020
Lateral Earth Pressure on

Retaining Walls
Ahmad Safuan A Rashid
Introduction
• The increase of lateral earth pressure during earthquakes induces
sliding and/or tilting to the retaining structures.
• The majority of case histories of failures reported in the literature until
now concern waterfront structures such as quay walls and bridge
abutments.
• Some of the examples of failures and lateral movements of quay walls
due to earthquakes are given in Table 8.1.
• Seed and Whitman (1970) have suggested that some of these failures
may have been due to several reasons, such as
• 1. increase of lateral earth pressure behind the wall,
• 2. reduction of water pressure at the front of the wall, and
• 3. liquefaction of the backfill material
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Introduction
• A comprehensive review on the dynamic lateral earth pressure studies
concluded that, the theories can be divided into three broad categories:
• 1. Fully plastic (static or pseudostatic) solution,
• 2. Solutions based on elastic wave theory, and
• 3. Solutions based on elastoplastic and nonlinear theory.
• Because of the complex soil-structure interaction (mode of wall
movement) during earthquakes, the lateral earth pressure theory based
on the fully plastic solution (also known as pseudostatic method) which
is widely used by most of the design engineers, is detailed in this
chapter.
• In earthquake engineering to analyze the seismic response of soil
embankments and slopes simply adding a permanent body force
representing the earthquake shaking to a static limit-
equilibrium analysis.
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Lateral Earth Pressure

• Analysis and determination of lateral earth pressure are necessary to
design retaining walls or retaining structures.
• There are three categories of earth pressure:
• Earth pressure at rest
• Elastic equilibrium with no lateral strain taking place
• Active earth pressure
• Plastic equilibrium with lateral expansion taking place
• Passive earth pressure
• Plastic equilibrium with lateral compression taking place
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• At Rest =  h  K o v
• Active & Passive = 1. Rankine theory
2. Coulomb theory
Rankine & Coulomb Theories

• Rankine - No adhesion or friction between wall and soil.(wall is smooth)
• Coulomb - Assumes that failure occurs in the form of wedge and that
friction occurs between wall and soil.
• Failure is assumed to occur in the form of a sliding wedge along a failure
plane (see figure)
• The direction of resultants pressure is parallel to the backfill and act to
1/3 from the wall base.
• Could be used for cohesionless and cohesion material.
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Coulomb Equation
• In 1776, Coulomb derived an equation for active
earth pressure on a retaining wall due to a dry
cohesionless backfill
Coulomb Equation
• In the actual design of retaining walls, the value of the wall friction δ is
assumed to be between ɸ/2 and 2ɸ/3
• The active earth pressure coefficients for various values of φ, i, and β
with δ = 2ɸ/3 are given in Table 8.3.
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Mononobe-Okabe Active Earth

PressureTheory
• Coulombs’ active earth pressure equation can be modified to take into account
the vertical and horizontal coefficients of acceleration induced by an
earthquake.
• This is generally referred to as the Mononobe-Okabe analysis
• (Mononobe, 1929; Okabe, 1926).
• The Mononobe-Okabe solution is based on the following assumptions:
1. The failure in soil takes place along a plane such as BC shown in Figure 8.2.
2. The movement of the wall is sufficient to produce minimum active pressure.
3. The shear strength of the dry cohesionless soil can be given by the equation
where σ’ is the effective stress and s is shear strength.

4. At failure, full shear strength along the failure plane (plane BC, Figure 8.2) is
mobilized.
5. The soil behind the retaining wall behaves as a rigid body.
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Pressure Theory
• Figure 8.2 shows the forces considered in the Mononobe-Okabe solution.
• Line AB is the back face of the retaining wall and ABC is the soil wedge
which will fail.
• The forces on the failure wedge per unit length of the wall are
a. weight of wedge W,
b. active force PAE,
c. resultant of shear and normal forces along the failure plane F, and
d. khW and kvW, the inertia forces in the horizontal and vertical directions,
respectively, where,
and g is acceleration due to gravity.
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Pressure Theory
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Pressure Theory
• The active force determined by the wedge analysis described here may
be expressed as
• where KAE is the active earth pressure coefficient with earthquake

effect:
• For the active force condition (PAE), the angle α that the soil wedge ABC
located behind the retaining wall (Figure 8.2) makes with the horizontal
(for kv = 0°, β = 0°, i = 0°, φ = 30°, and δ = 0° and 20°) is shown in Figure
8.3.
• Table 8.4 gives the values of KAE [Eq. (8.5)] for various values of φ, δ, i,
and kh with kv = 0 and β = 0°.
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Pressure Theory
• Considering the active force relation given, the term sin(φ – θ – i) has
some important implications.
• First, if φ – θ – i < 0 (i.e., negative), no real solution of KAE is possible.
• Physically it implies that an equilibrium condition will not exist. Hence,
for stability, the limiting slope of the backfill may be given by
• For no earthquake condition, θ = 0; for stability, gives the familiar

relation
• Secondly, for horizontal backfill, i = 0; for stability,
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Pressure Theory
• Since , for stability, combining
results in
• Hence, the critical value of the horizontal

acceleration, kh(cr) can be defined as
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Pressure Theory
• Procedure for Obtaining PAE Using Standard Charts of KA.
• Since the values of KA are available in most standard handbooks and
textbooks, Arango (1969) developed a simple procedure for obtaining
the values of KAE from the standard charts of KA.
• (Static)
• (Dynamic)
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Pressure Theory
• The preceding equation is similar to Eq. (8.13) except for the fact that i’
and β’ are used in place of i and β. Thus, it can be said that
• The active earth pressure PAE can now be expressed as
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Pressure Theory
• In order to calculate PAE, one needs to follow these
steps:
• 1. Calculate i’.
• 2. Calculate β’.
• With known values of φ, δ, i’, and β’, calculate KA
(from Tables 8.2, Table 8.3, or other available
charts).
• 4. Calculate PA as equal to
• 5. Calculate (1-kv) .
• 6. Calculate *p
• 7. Calculate
• For convenience, some typical values of *p are
plotted in Figure 8.5.
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Effect of Various Parameters on the Value

of the Active Earth Pressure Coefficient
• Parameters such as the angle of wall friction, angle of friction of soil, and
slope of the backfill influence the magnitude of the active earth pressure
coefficient KAE to varying degrees.
• Effect of Wall Friction Angle δ - the effect of wall friction on the active
earth pressure coefficient is rather small.
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• Effect of Soil Friction Angle φ - Figure 8.7 shows the
plot of KAE cosδ (that is, the horizontal component of
the active earth pressure coefficient) for a vertical
retaining wall with horizontal backfill (β = 0° and i =
0°).
• In this plot, it has been assumed that δ = 1/2 φ.
• From the plot, it may be seen that, for kv = 0, kh = 0
and δ = 1/2 φ, KAE (φ = 30°) is about 35% higher than
KAE (φ = 40°).
• Hence, a small error in the assumption of the soil
friction angle could lead to a large error in the
estimation of PAE.
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• Effect of Slope of the Backfill i -Figure 8.8 shows the
variation of the value of KAE cosδ with i for a wall
with β = 0, δ = 23 φ, φ = 30°, and kh = 0. Note that
the value of KAE cosδ sharply increases with the
increase of the slope of the backfill.
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Graphical Construction for

Determination of Active Force, PAE
• Culmann (1875) developed a graphical method for determination of the
active force PA developed behind a retaining wall.
• A modified form of Culmann’s graphical construction for determination
of the active force PAE per unit length of a retaining wall has been
proposed by Kapila (1962).
• In order to understand this, consider the force polygon for the wedge
ABC shown in Figure 8.2. For convenience, this has been replotted in
Figure 8.9a. The force polygon can be reduced to a force triangle with
forces PAE, F, and (Figure 8.9b).
• Note that in Figure 8.9a, b, α is the angle that the failure wedge makes
with the horizontal.
• The idea behind this graphical construction is to determine the
maximum value of PAE by considering several trial wedges. With
references to Figure 8.9c, following are steps for the graphical
construction:
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Figure 8.2 Figure 8.9
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1. Draw line BE, which makes an angle φ – θ with horizontal.
2. Draw a line BD, which makes an angle 90° – β – δ – θ with the line BE.
3. Draw BC1, BC2, BC3,…, which are the trial failure surface.
4. Determine kh and kv and then
5. Determine the weights W1, W2, W3,…of trial failure wedges ABC1,
ABC2,ABC3,…, respectively (per unit length at right angle to the cross
section shown).
Note
W1 = (area of ABC1) × γ × 1
W2 = (area of ABC2) × γ × 1
6. Determine W1’,W2’ as
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7.Adopt a load scale.
8. Using the load scale adopted in step 7, draw BF1 = W1’ , BF2 = W2’, BF3
= W3’, …on the line BE.
9. Draw F1G1, F2G2, F3G3,…, parallel to line BD. Note that BF1G1 is the force
triangle for the trial wedge ABC1 smaller to that shown in Figure 8.9.
Similarly, BF2G2, BF3G3,…, are the force triangles for the trial wedges ABC2,
ABC3,…, respectively.
10. Join the points G1, G2, G3,…, by a smooth curve.
11. Draw a line HJ parallel to line BE. Let G be point of tangency.
12. Draw line GF parallel to BD.
13. Determine active force PAE as GF × (load scale).
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Lateral Earth Pressure

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27/12/2020