Technical Note

Active Earth Pressure against Rigid Retaining Walls

Subjected to Confined Cohesionless Soil
Jin-Jian Chen, A.M.ASCE1; Ming-Guang Li2; and Jian-Hua Wang3
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Abstract: This study proposes a practical method for determining active earth pressure of confined cohesionless soil. A trapezoidal thrust
wedge model confined by two vertical rigid retaining walls is developed to derive the governing equations of earth pressure distribution and
the resultant force. The resultant force depends on the unknown incline angle of the sliding plane and must be maximized with respect to
the angle. The active earth pressure can be determined once the incline angle is obtained by solving the governing equations with the finite-
difference method. Based on these equations, parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effects of the confined width on the active
earth pressure and the inclination of the sliding plane. As expected, the active earth pressure decreases with the confined width due to the arch-
ing effect. In contrast, the incline angle of the slip plane in the confined cohesionless soil is in close proximity to that of Coulomb’s solution.
Moreover, the incline angle of the proposed solution and Coulomb’s solution are used to determine the active earth pressure, respectively. The
results of the two solutions are almost equivalent. Based on these findings, a practical method is proposed, in which the incline angle of
Coulomb’s solution is suggested for the derived equations to determine the active earth pressure of confined cohesionless soil. The proposed
method provides satisfactory results when compared with previous studies. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0000855. © 2016
American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Active earth pressure; Confined cohesionless; Slice element; Retaining walls.

Introduction rigid retaining wall transferred by confined granular backfill. The

Theories for active earth pressure against a rigid retaining wall pro-
posed by Coulomb (1776) and Rankine (1857) are widely used in
the design of retaining structures. Several new analytical methods
have been developed for determining the active earth pressure based
on the limit equilibrium method (Li and Liu 2010; Ouyang et al.
2013), the slip line method (Liu et al. 2009; Peng and Chen 2013;
Liu 2014), or the slice element method (Kumar and Reimbert 2002;
Paik and Salgado 2003; Li and Wang 2014). All of these methods
are based on the assumption that the backfill behind the wall extends
to a sufficient distance, and that the failure wedge develops fully in
the backfill. However, when a retaining wall is in close proximity to
a substructure, as shown in Fig. 1, neither the thrust wedge (Greco
2013) nor the earth pressure (Frydman and Keissar 1987) can be
predicted by the traditional earth pressure formulas proposed by
Coulomb (1776) and Rankine (1857).
Researchers have focused on the earth pressure acting on a retain-
ing wall with confined backfill soil for the last two decades. Frydman
and Keissar (1987) performed a series of centrifuge model tests with
several width-height ratios to examine the lateral earth pressure on a
1
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao
Tong Univ., 800 Dongchuan Rd., Shanghai 200240, China. E-mail:
chenjj29@sjtu.edu.cn
2
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
Univ., 800 Dongchuan Rd., Shanghai 200240, China. E-mail:
Lmg20066028@sjtu.edu.cn
3
Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ.,
800 Dongchuan Rd., Shanghai 200240, China (corresponding author).
E-mail: wjh417@sjtu.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on August 6, 2015; approved on
October 11, 2016; published online on November 16, 2016. Discussion pe-
riod open until April 16, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This technical note is part of the International Journal
of Geomechanics, © ASCE, ISSN 1532-3641.
effect of this ratio on the lateral earth pressure was also studied by
Take and Valsangkar (2001), who showed that the earth pressure has
a nonlinear distribution due to the stress redistribution, which is
referred to as the soil arching effect (Terzaghi 1943). O’Neal and
Hagerty (2011) reported a case study on earth pressure exerted on
rigid retaining walls by confined backfill zones. The measured earth
pressure values reflect soil arching and vertical shear effects. Based
on the numerical results, Fan and Fang (2010) found that the calcu-
lated active earth pressure for a wall with limited backfill width was
considerably less than that based on the Coulomb solution.
Recently, analytical methods based on a multiwedge approach
have been developed for active earth pressure with narrow backfill
(Ying et al. 2010; Greco 2013). Greco (2013) attempted to derive a
formula for the active thrust exerted by narrow width backfill using
the limit equilibrium method. The results revealed that mechanisms
with four or more wedges do not have an analytical solution in
terms of roots. Ying et al. (2010) established a set of equilibrium
equations to study the influence of backfill width on the sliding
plane. However, the relatively cumbersome process involved hin-
dered its application in practical engineering.
In this paper, a practical method for calculating the active earth
pressure of confined cohesionless soil is proposed based on a trape-
zoidal thrust wedge model. The effects of confined width on the in-
clination of a sliding plane and on the active earth pressure are
investigated. Based on the results, a simplified method is proposed
for practical engineering and is verified by comparing it with previ-
ous studies.
Theoretical Considerations
Trapezoidal Thrust Wedge Model
Coulomb (1776) acted as a pioneer in proposing a single sliding
plane model for estimating the active earth pressure with infinite

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Int. J. Geomech., 2017, 17(6): 06016041

 backfill. Recently, Ying et al (2010) and Greco (2013) proposed a h ¼ H  B tan a (1)
multiwedge model for the active earth pressure on retaining walls
of confined backfill. However, the relatively cumbersome process where H = height of the retaining wall; and B = width of the con-
involved hindered its application in practical engineering. In this pa- fined soil. The aspect ratio is defined as R = B=H. The minimum as-
per a trapezoidal thrust wedge, which makes an angle, a, with the pect ratio for a complete sliding plane, referred to as the critical as-
horizontal, is adopted to calculate the active earth pressure acting pect ratio, Rc , can be calculated using Eq. (2)
on a translational rigid retaining wall. As shown in Fig. 2(a), the
sliding plane intersects with the opposite stationary wall because Rc ¼ B=H ¼ 1= tan a (2)
the soil between the two walls is confined. The depth of the intersec-
tion from the wall top is
Active Earth Pressure
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When soil behind a retaining wall is confined, the failure surface is

Fig. 1. Sliding plane develops in the soil with narrow width
composed of two planes: ab and bc. Thus, the sliding thrust wedge
abcd between the two adjacent retaining walls is divided into two
types of horizontal slice elements with rectangular and trapezoidal
shapes, respectively. Figs. 2(b and c) show the various forces on the
slice elements, where d and w = soil-wall interface friction angle
and internal friction angle of the soil; z and dz = depth and the thick-
ness of the slice element; pz = lateral earth pressure; pz tan d = verti-
cal soil-wall shearing stress;
q z and
q z þ d

q z = internal vertical
stresses assumed to be uniformly distributed on the horizontal
plane; dG = weight of the slice element and is a vertical and down-
ward force; and r and r tan w , acting on the sliding plane, are the
normal reaction stress and frictional stress, respectively. Using
these parameters, general equations can be developed.
For the rectangular slice element, as shown in Fig. 2(b), the lat-
eral stress distribution is governed by Eq. (3), which is based on
Janssen’s arching theory (Janssen 1895) and is commonly used for
calculating silo pressure


gB 2k tan d
pz ¼ 1  exp  z 0z<h (3)
2 tan d B

where g = unit weight of the retained soil; z = depth below the wall
top; and k = active lateral stress ratio of pz =

q z and will be discussed
in the next section.
For the trapezoidal layer element in Fig. 2(c), the lateral stress
distribution was derived by Kumar and Reimbert (2002), as gov-
erned by Eq. (4)
k g
pz ¼ ðH  zÞ þ C2 kðH  zÞkC1 1
kC1 þ 2
where

cos ða  w  d Þtan a ph kC þ1
C1 ¼  C2 ¼ ðH  hÞ 1
sin ða  w Þcos d k
g
þ ðH  hÞkC1 þ2 (4)
kC1 þ 2

Therefore, the active earth pressure distribution with a confined

soil wedge can be obtained
8 

>
> gB 2k tan d
>
>   0z<h
< 2 tan d 1 exp
B
z
pz ¼ (5)
>
> k g
>
> kC1 1
: kC þ 2 ðH  zÞ þ C2 kðH  zÞ hzH
1

Fig. 2. Sliding plane model for active earth pressure with narrow soil
width: (a) mechanical model; (b) Element I; (c) Element II
The total horizontal earth pressure can be obtained by the fol-
lowing integration:

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Int. J. Geomech., 2017, 17(6): 06016041

 ðH sin ða  w Þcos d cot a 1
P¼ pz dz (6) P¼ g H2 (10)
0 cos ða  w  d Þ 2

Substituting pz in Eq. (5) into Eq. (6), the following can be which equals that obtained by Coulomb’s theory (Kumar and
obtained with the effect of the incline angle on the lateral stress ra- Reimbert 2002), and angle a can be calculated using Eq. (11) based
tio, k, neglected: on Coulomb’s theory

  rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi !
ÐH g B2 2k tan d tan w
P ¼ 0 pz dz ¼ exp  h 1 ac ¼ arctan tan w þ
2 þ tan w (11)
4k tan 2 d B tan ð w þ d Þ
gB gk C
þ h ðH  hÞ2  2 ðH  hÞkC1 (7)
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2 tan d 2kC1 þ 4 C1 Thus, the critical aspect ratio, Rc , can be alternatively expressed as

Eq. (7) shows that the total horizontal earth pressure is depend-
ent on the active lateral stress ratio, k, and the angle of the sliding
plane, a. Based on this realization, the ratio, k, and the angle, a, in
confined backfill zones need to be investigated further.
Lateral Stress Ratio, K
The active lateral stress ratio, k, is the ratio, pz =

q z , where pz = lateral
earth pressure at the wall; and
q z = average vertical stress across the
differential slice element. To derive an expression for k, the influ-
ence of the soil arching effect on the direction of the minor principal
stresses must be considered. Paik and Salgado (2003) assumed that
the trajectory of minor principal stresses in a slice element takes the
form of a downward arc of a circle and derived a relationship for the
active lateral stress ratio
pz 3ðN cos 2 u þ sin 2 u Þ
k¼ ¼ (8)
q z 3N  ðN  1Þ cos 2 u


Rc ¼ 1= tan ac (12)
However, when the aspect ratio is small, Eq. (9) does not admit
solutions in terms of roots and can only be solved numerically. In
this paper, the finite-difference method is used to solve Eq. (9).
After the angle a is obtained, the active earth pressure distribution
and total horizontal earth pressure can be calculated using Eqs. (5)
and (7), respectively.
Parametric Studies
The previous analysis indicates that the sliding plane and the active
earth pressure are different from that predicted by Coulomb’s
theory when the aspect ratio R < Rc . In this section, parametric
studies will be performed to investigate the influence of the aspect
ratio on the sliding plane and the active earth pressure with confined
cohesionless soil.
Effect of the Aspect Ratio on the Active Earth Pressure

where N ¼ tan 2 ð45o þ w =2Þ; u = rotation angle of the principal
stresses; and
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
N  16 ðN  1Þ2  4N tan 2 d
u ¼ tan 1
2 tan d
Of the two values of u given by the equation, the largest value
corresponds to the active condition of the rigid retaining wall. Note
that u ¼ 90o for d ¼ 0 (Paik and Salgado 2003). Eq. (8) is inde-
pendent of soil width and is appropriate for the calculation of the
active lateral stress ratio in this paper.
Inclination of Sliding Plane, a
After the ratio k is determined for Eq. (7), the active earth pressure
can be calculated. The total horizontal earth pressure, P, depends on
the unknown angle, a, and must be maximized with respect to the
angle. The value, a, which results in a maximum value for P, is
obtained by the condition
Fig. 3 illustrates the influence of the soil width on the total horizon-
tal earth pressure, where the height of the model is set to 4.0. The in-
ternal friction angle of the soil and friction angle of the soil-wall
interface are 30 and 20°, respectively. Thus, the slip surface angle is
about 56°, and the corresponding critical aspect ratio is 0.67. When
R is larger than the critical aspect ratio, i.e., Rc ¼ 0:67, the total hor-
izontal earth pressure calculated by the derived equation is the same
as that calculated using Coulomb’s theory. However, when R is
smaller than the critical aspect ratio, the total horizontal earth pres-
sure will decrease with the aspect ratio.
Four aspect ratios with values of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.67 are con-
sidered for Eq. (5) to investigate the influence of the aspect ratio on
the earth pressure distribution, as shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that

∂P
f ða; d ; w ; RÞ ¼ ¼0 (9)
∂a

It can be seen that a is a function of the friction angles, d and w ,

and the aspect ratio, R.
For a ratio R larger than Rc , the depth of the intersection, h, Fig. 3. Influence of the aspect ratio on the total horizontal earth
equals 0, and the total horizontal pressure in Eq. (7) can be alterna- pressure
tively expressed as

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Int. J. Geomech., 2017, 17(6): 06016041

 the earth pressure is significantly influenced by the aspect ratio, and
it decreases dramatically with a decrease in the aspect ratio.

Effect of the Aspect Ratio on the Angle a

Fig. 5 shows the changes in the angle a with the aspect ratio. As
expected, the results of Eq. (9) coincide with those of Eq. (11) when
R  Rc . The angle a increases gently with a decrease in the aspect
ratio. When B=H = 0.1, the inclinations for d = 10 and 20° are 59.5
and 58.1°, which are only 3.8 and 2.9% larger than ac , respectively.
This indicates that the influence of the aspect ratio on the slip sur-
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face plane is very small. The comparison of the angle, a, calculated

using Eqs. (9) and (11) with different friction angles, d and w , is
further illustrated in Figs. 6 and 7, where R ¼ 0.3. It can be seen that
the results of Eq. (9) are in close proximity to those obtained with
Eq. (11). Figs. 5–7 reveal that the aspect ratio has only a small effect
on the inclination of the sliding plane, and a in retained soil with a
small aspect ratio is close to that of Coulomb’s solution. Fig. 6. Influence of the soil-wall interface friction angle on the inclina-
For further investigation, the angles obtained with Eqs. (9) and tion of the sliding plane
(11) are used for total horizontal earth pressure calculation. The
related results are listed in Table 1, where P = total horizontal earth

Fig. 7. Influence of the internal friction angle of the soil on the inclina-
tion of the sliding plane

pressure calculated with Eqs. (7) and (9); and Pc is calculated using
Fig. 4. Influence of the aspect ratio on the earth pressure distribution Eqs. (7) and (11). To quantify the difference between P and Pc , an
error index, ɛ, is introduced and is defined as
Pc  P
ɛ¼  100% (13)
P

Table 1 shows that Pc is almost the same as P. The maximum

value of ɛ is less than 0.15%, which indicates that the changes in a
due to changes in the soil width have almost no influence on the
total horizontal earth pressure. To provide a more flexible and appli-
cable method for practical engineering, the incline angle of
Coulomb’s solution is suggested for the derived equations to deter-
mine the active earth pressure of confined cohesionless soil.

Comparison with Previous Studies

Fig. 5. Influence of the aspect ratio on the inclination of the sliding The simplified method is used to solve a problem with the following
plane data (Greco 2013): height of retaining wall, H = 8.5 m; soil density,
g = 20 kN/m3; soil internal friction angle, w = 36°; friction angle of

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Int. J. Geomech., 2017, 17(6): 06016041

 Table 1. Effect of Angle a on Total Horizontal Earth Pressure (kN)

d ¼ 5, w ¼ 15 d ¼ 10, w ¼ 15 d ¼ 10, w ¼ 30 d ¼ 20, w ¼ 30 d ¼ 15, w ¼ 45 d ¼ 30, w ¼ 45

B=H P Pc ɛ (%) P Pc ɛ (%) P Pc ɛ (%) P Pc ɛ (%) P Pc ɛ(%) P Pc ɛ (%)
0.1 69.19 69.17 0.03 53.66 53.65 0.02 37.65 37.63 0.05 28.05 28.04 0.06 20.77 20.76 0.06 15.96 15.95 0.10
0.2 80.32 80.28 0.05 70.08 70.05 0.04 44.4 44.37 0.08 37.7 37.66 0.11 23.63 23.61 0.08 20.37 20.34 0.15
0.3 84.45 84.39 0.06 76.91 76.86 0.05 46.85 46.82 0.08 41.67 41.63 0.11 24.51 24.5 0.05 21.88 21.86 0.10
0.4 86.46 86.4 0.06 80.3 80.26 0.05 47.95 47.92 0.05 43.5 43.46 0.09 24.77 24.77 0.00 22.37 22.37 0.02
0.5 87.54 87.5 0.05 82.12 82.08 0.05 48.44 48.42 0.02 44.33 44.31 0.05 24.8 24.8 0.00 22.44 22.44 0.00
0.6 88.14 88.11 0.03 83.12 83.09 0.03 48.6 48.6 0.00 44.65 44.64 0.01 — — — — — —
0.7 88.45 88.44 0.01 83.64 83.63 0.02 — — — 44.7 44.7 0.00 — — — — — —
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0.8 88.57 88.57 0.00 83.89 83.89 0.01 — — — — — — — — — — — —

0.9 88.59 88.59 0.00 83.97 83.97 0.00 — — — — — — — — — — — —

Conclusions

This paper focuses on the active earth pressure of confined cohe-

Fig. 8. Values of the ratio obtained with the proposed method com-
pared with those of previous studies
soil-wall interface, d = 25°; and soil width, B = 0.118 H. Fig. 8
presents a comparison between the results of the proposed method
and those of previous studies. The horizontal pressures are normal-
ized by g z. The scatter points represent the experimental results of
centrifuge tests conducted by Frydman and Keissar (1987). The
solid curve refers to the arching theory governing equation, with the
0
active lateral stress ratio using Eq. (14), where q = vertical stress at
the wall. The dashed curve is the result of a complex formula sug-
gested by Handy (1985), although this formula weakens the arching
effect for the problem considered in this study. The dash-dot curve
proposed by Greco (2013) is based on the limit equilibrium method,
which is unable to consider the influence of the arching effect on the
earth pressure distribution. The applicability of the method pro-
posed by Greco (2013) is also limited to within three thrust wedges.
This means that the ratio pz/ g z cannot be obtained when z/B
exceeds 5.6 for the presented problem. From Fig. 8, it is evident that
the prediction of the proposed method is in good agreement with
centrifuge experimental data and those of the previous analytical
methods
pz
k¼
q0
  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
sin 2 w þ1  ð sin 2 w þ1Þ  ð1sin 2 w Þð4tan 2 d sin 2 w þ1Þ
¼ /(ASCE)0733-9410(1985)111:3(302), 302–318.
ð4tan 2 d sin 2 w þ1Þ
(14)
sionless soil. Equations are derived based on the horizontal slice
element confined by two vertical rigid retaining walls. Parametric
studies are conducted using the derived equations to investigate the
effect of the aspect ratio on the active earth pressure and incline
angle. A practical method is proposed to estimate the active earth
pressure of confined cohesionless soil. Based on the analyses, the
following conclusions can be drawn.
Soil width has influences on both the inclination of the sliding
plane (a) and on the distribution of the active earth pressure, when
the aspect ratio, (R = B=H), is smaller than the critical ratio, Rc .
Although the active earth pressure decreases dramatically with con-
fined width, the change of a to the confined width is insignificant.
Moreover, the active earth pressure of confined cohesionless soil
calculated using the incline angle of Coulomb’s solution and pro-
posed solution is almost equivalent.
A simplified method is proposed in which the incline angle of
Coulomb’s solution is suggested for the derived equations to deter-
mine the active earth pressure of confined cohesionless soil. The
proposed method considers the soil arching effect and provides sat-
isfactory results when compared with previous studies.
Acknowledgments
The financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC Grants 41172251, 41330633, and 41372282) is
gratefully acknowledged.
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