EARTH PRESSURES ON RETAINING WALLS DUE TO ANISOTROPIC AND NONHOMOGENEOUS BACKFILLS

The paper is intended to be an extension of the authors' previous works in the statics of soil media based on the method of characteristics with regard for the special case of shear strength anisotropy and deposit nonhomogeneity. The authors discuss a theoretical study of the lateral earth pressure on retaining walls. Both passive and active conditions are studied and numerical results are computed and compared for different anisotropy ratios k, defined as the ratio of vertical strength to horizontal strength for different internal friction, wall-soil fiction, wall inclination and cohesion to depth ratios. Because of the dimensionless form in which the results are presented, these could be used easily in retaining-wall design if the user wants a refinement. It is noteworthy that whereas the analytical study is a very comprehensive one, the assumptions about soil intrinsic properties may be questionable, especially for soils exhibiting friction as well as cohesion. The anisotropy is intimately connected to the anisotropic consolidation of the deposit which affects the undrained shear strength, primarily for the mobilized friction term and it may be worthwhile to note that this very undrained shear strength is the one governing the most critical situation of retaining-wall stability in clays. The contribution of this paper may be in the more elaborate qualitative analysis of the passive earth pressure along rigid walls with varying geometry and soil properties. Some conditions are unlikely for practical purposes, being inconsistent with real phenomena because of the unusual increase of the active pressure coefficient K sub AM and consequently, the increase of the active trust with increase of the cohesion with depth.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This article is the abstract of a paper that originally appeared in Journal of the Indian Institute of Science, Vol, 58, No. 8, August, 1976, pp 345-369.
• Corporate Authors:

  American Society of Mechanical Engineers

  Two Park Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10016-5990
• Authors:
  • Siva REDDY, A
  • Srinivasan, R J
• Publication Date: 1977-8

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 1067
• Serial:
  • Applied Mechanics Reviews
  • Volume: 30
  • Issue Number: 8
  • Publisher: American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Anisotropy (Physics); Backfilling; Clay; Cohesion; Earth pressure; Internal friction; Properties of materials; Retaining walls; Soils; Stability (Mechanics); Stresses; Undrained shear strength; Wall friction
• Uncontrolled Terms: Soil properties
• Old TRIS Terms: Anisotropy; Backfills
• Subject Areas: Geotechnology; Highways; Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00164096
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: Review No. 6724
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 29 1977 12:00AM