Active earth pressure on retaining wall with a relief shelf: a novel analytical method

摘要

Retaining walls with pressure relief shelves bring a substantial reduction in lateral earth pressures acting on these walls, and they have been increasingly used in various infrastructure projects in several countries for more than a decade. However, due to the complexity of soil-wall-relief shelf interaction, the lateral earth pressure distribution on the wall with relief shelves is still uncertain. The present study proposes generalized closed-form mathematical expressions to evaluate the active lateral earth pressure distribution on the wall with a relief shelf located at any position along the height of the wall. This proposed model is compared with the findings of experimental and numerical analyses available in the literature and found to be adequate to predict the active earth pressure distribution along with the height of the wall with a relief shelf. Also, the expressions for total lateral thrust on the wall and its point of application, the maximum moment at the wall base, and reduction in total lateral thrust on the retaining wall with a relief shelf are evaluated. The position of the relief shelf is found to be an important governing factor for maximizing the reduction of lateral thrust and maximum bending moment in the case of the wall with a relief shelf. Also, a detailed parametric study is carried out to evaluate the influence of the internal friction angle of soil and soil-wall interface on the governing design parameters of a wall with a relief shelf.