Seismic Active Earth Pressure for Soils with Tension Cracks
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 19, Issue 6
Abstract
It is widely acknowledged that the occurrence of seismic force and cracks will increase the active earth pressure acting on a retaining wall. In this work, a kinematic approach for the evaluation of seismic active earth pressure was established, and a rotational mechanism consisting of a logarithmic spiral curve and a vertical crack was used to calculate the rates of external work and internal energy dissipation. Although numerous cracks exist in cohesive backfill, this study only considered the most critical vertical crack that led to the maximum active earth pressure. Different crack types, including pre-existing cracks and cracks forming contemporaneously with the mechanism, are discussed in the paper. According to the quasi-static method, the concept of seismic coefficient was adopted to account for earthquake effects on the active earth pressure. In the domain of soil plasticity, explicit expressions of seismic earth thrust for different cracks types were derived. A comparison analysis was carried out to verify the effectiveness of the present calculations. The influence of different parameters on the seismic earth pressure is discussed. It was found that the presence of cracks and the seismic actions have adverse effects on the stability of soil–wall systems, and that the pre-existing cracks always yield a more conservative result than the formation cracks.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Financial support was received from the Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate of Central South University (2018zzts633) for the preparation of this manuscript, which is greatly appreciated.
References
Aminpour, M. M., M. Maleki, and A. Ghanbari. 2017. “Investigation of the effect of surcharge on behavior of soil slopes.” Geomech. Eng. 13 (4): 653–669.
Anyaegbunam, A. J. 2015. “Nonlinear power-type failure laws for geomaterials: Synthesis from triaxial data, properties, and applications.” Int. J. Geomech. 15 (1): 04014036. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0000348.
Cai, Y., Q. Chen, Y. Zhou, S. Nimbalkar, and J. Yu. 2017. “Estimation of passive earth pressure against rigid retaining wall considering arching effect in cohesive-frictional backfill under translation mode.” Int. J. Geomech. 17 (4): 04016093. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0000786.
Chen, W. F. 1975. Limit analysis and soil plasticity. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
Chen, W. F., and X. L. Liu. 1990. Limit analysis in soil mechanics. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
Chen, Z. Y., and S. M. Li. 1998. “Evaluation of active earth pressure by the generalized method of slices.” Can. Geotechn. J. 35 (4): 591–599. https://doi.org/10.1139/t98-022.
Choudhury, D., A. D. Katdare, and A. Pain. 2014. “New method to compute seismic active earth pressure on retaining wall considering seismic waves.” Geotech. Geol. Eng. 32 (2): 391–402. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-013-9721-8.
Ebarek, N. B., S. Benmebarek, R. Kastner, and A. Ubra. 2006. “Passive and active earth pressures in the presence of groundwater flow.” Géotechnique 56 (3): 49–158.
Evangelista, A., A. S. Santolo, and A. L. Simonelli. 2010. “Evaluation of pseudostatic active earth pressure coefficient of cantilever retaining walls.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 30 (11): 1119–1128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2010.06.018.
Han, S., J. Gong, and Y. Zhang. 2016. “Earth pressure of layered soil on retaining structures.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 83: 33–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2015.12.015.
Huang, D., and J. Liu. 2016. “Upper-bound limit analysis on seismic rotational stability of retaining wall.” KSCE J. Civ. Eng. 20 (7): 2664–2669. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-016-0471-z.
Iskander, M., Z. Chen, M. Omidvar, I. Guzman, and O. Elsherif. 2013. “Active static and seismic earth pressure for c-φ soils.” Soils Found. 53 (5): 639–652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2013.08.003.
Li, T. Z., and X. L. Yang. 2018. “Probabilistic stability analysis of subway tunnels combining multiple failure mechanisms and response surface method.” Int. J. Geomech. 18 (12): 04018167. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001315.
Li, Z. W., and X. L. Yang. 2019. “Active earth thrust considering tension crack, pore-water pressure and soil nonlinearity.” KSCE J. Civ. Eng. 23 (1): 56–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-018-1098-z.
Lin, Y. L., W. M. Leng, G. L. Yang, L. H. Zhao, L. Li, and J. S. Yang. 2015. “Seismic active earth pressure of cohesive-frictional soil on retaining wall based on a slice analysis method.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 70: 133–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2014.12.006.
Matsuzawa, H., and H. Hazarika. 1996. “Analyses of active earth pressure against rigid retaining wall subjected to different modes of movement.” Soils Found. 36 (3): 51–65. https://doi.org/10.3208/sandf.36.3_51.
Michalowski, R. L. 2013. “Stability assessment of slopes with cracks using limit analysis.” Can. Geotech. J. 50 (10): 1001–1021.
Mononobe, N., and H. Matsuo. 1929. “On the determination of earth pressures during earthquakes.” Proc. World Eng. Congr. 9: 179–187.
Motta, E. 1996. “Generalized coulomb active-earth pressure for distanced surcharge.” J. Geotech. Eng. 122 (2): 165–167.
Mylonakis, G., P. Kloukinas, and C. Papantonopoulos. 2007. “An alternative to the Mononobe-Okabe equations for seismic earth pressures.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 27 (10): 957–969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2007.01.004.
Okabe, S. 1924. “General theory on earth pressure and seismic stability of retaining wall and dam.” J. Jpn. Soc. Civ. Eng. 10 (6): 1277–1323.
Okamoto, S. 1956. “Bearing capacity of sandy soil and lateral earth pressure during earthquake.” In Proc., 1st World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, 1–16. Oakland, CA: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Dept. of Engineering, Univ. of California.
Paik, K. H., and R. Salgado. 2003. “Estimation of active earth pressure against rigid retaining walls considering arching effects.” Géotechnique 53 (7): 643–653. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.2003.53.7.643.
Pain, A., Q. Chen, S. Nimbalkar, and Y. Zhou. 2017. “Evaluation of seismic passive earth pressure of inclined rigid retaining wall considering soil arching effect.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 100: 286–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2017.06.011.
Pain, A., V. S. Ramakrishna Annapareddy, and S. Nimbalkar. 2018. “Seismic active thrust on rigid retaining wall using strain dependent dynamic properties.” Int. J. Geomech. 18 (12): 06018034. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001331.
Potts, D. M., and A. B. Fourie. 1986. “A numerical study of the effect of wall deformation on earth pressures.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech. 10 (4): 383–405. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.1610100404.
Prakash, S., and S. Saran. 1968. “Dimensionless parameters for static and dynamic earth pressures behind retaining walls.” Indian Geotech. J. 7 (3): 295–310.
Son, M., and S. Adedokun. 2015. “Comparison of earth pressure between numerical and analytical methods for jointed rock wedges.” KSCE J. Civ. Eng. 19 (7): 2075–2082. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-015-0318-z.
Utili, S. 2013. “Investigation by limit analysis on the stability of slopes with cracks.” Géotechnique 63 (2): 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.11.P.068.
Vahedifard, F., B. A. Leshchinsky, K. Mortezaei, and N. Lu. 2015. “Active earth pressures for unsaturated retaining structures.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng. 141 (11): 04015048. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0001356.
Vieira, C. S., M. D. L. Lopes, and L. M. Caldeira. 2011. “Earth pressure coefficients for design of geosynthetic reinforced soil structures.” Geotext. Geomembr. 29 (5): 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2011.04.003.
Xu, J. S., and X. L. Yang. 2018. “Seismic and static stability analysis for 3D reinforced slope in nonhomogeneous and anisotropic soils.” Int. J. Geomech. 18 (7): 04018065. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001177.
Xu, J. S., and X. L. Yang. 2019. “Seismic stability of 3D soil slope reinforced by geosynthetic with nonlinear failure criterion.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 118: 86–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2018.12.019.
Xu, S. Y., A. Shamsabadi, and E. Taciroglu. 2015. “Evaluation of active and passive seismic earth pressures considering internal friction and cohesion.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng. 70: 30–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2014.11.004.
Yang, M., and X. Tang. 2017. “Rigid retaining walls with narrow cohesionless backfills under various wall movement modes.” Int. J. Geomech. 17 (11): 04017098. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001007.
Yang, X. L., and H. Y. Wang. 2018. “Catastrophe analysis of active-passive mechanisms for shallow tunnels with settlement.” Geomech. Eng. 15 (1): 621–630.
Zhou, Y. T., Q. S. Chen, F. Q. Chen, X. H. Xue, and S. Basack. 2018. “Active earth pressure on translating rigid retaining structures considering soil arching effect.” Eur. J. Environ. Civ. Eng. 22 (8): 910–926. https://doi.org/10.1080/19648189.2016.1229225.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 19 • Issue 6 • June 2019
Copyright
© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 20, 2018
Accepted: Nov 20, 2018
Published online: Mar 19, 2019
Published in print: Jun 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Aug 19, 2019
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.