Research on a New Method for Calculating Seismic Earth Pressure

Earth pressure acting on a retaining wall will increase dramatically during earthquakes. The traditional seismic earth pressure calculation method is the M-O method, but it cannot consider the influence of the cohesion force. Furthermore, it can only be used in a limited scope. In order to solve the limitation of the M-O method, a new active seismic earth pressure formula is deduced in terms of an energy conversation law. In addition, the method has been applied on an engineering case to check its applicability. The calculation results show that the method can consider the effect of the cohesion force and the result is reliable.