Seismic Active Earth Pressure behind the Inclined Retaining Wall for Inclined c-ϕ Soil Backfill

In the seismically active zones, pseudo-static and pseudo-dynamic approaches are widely used for designing the retaining wall with c-ϕ backfill. However, the effect of soil amplification is neglected while considering propagation of waves from base. Soil amplification is crucial in the computation of seismic active earth pressure while analyzing the retaining walls of significant height. It should not be ignored in the seismic design of retaining wall. In this paper, soil amplification effects has been incorporated in the pseudo-dynamic approach for prediction of earth pressure on inclined retaining supporting inclined c-ϕ soil backfill. Depth of tension crack has been obtained from derived seismic earth pressure distribution for soils having nonzero cohesion. Then total seismic earth pressure is computed from integration of earth pressure from depth of tensile crack to base. A parametric study is conducted to examine the effect of various parameters like cohesion value of soil backfill, wall friction, wall inclination, soil backfill inclination, soil amplification, horizontal and vertical seismic coefficients. The results obtained for seismic active earth pressure is clearly showing the non-linear behavior behind the inclined retaining wall, which is the requirement of the design of retaining wall in earthquake-prone regions.