Active earth pressure with numerically evaluated seepage effect

摘要

A method for the evaluation of the active earth pressure by a soil mass including the effect of water seepage with the determination of the seepage effect by the Boundary Element Method (BEM) followed by the trial wedge limit equilibrium procedure is presented. This process can be applied either for the case where the whole soil mass is subjected to the water seepage, or for the case where the seepage occurs only in a portion of the soil mass, which is delimited by a phreatic surface. For the last case, the BEM should be applied in an iteractive procedure to find the position of the phreatic surface. The numerical results obtained with the presented method shows that the seepage may significantly increase the active earth pressure against the retaining structure.