Active earth thrust on vertical walls supporting sandy sloping ground of different height and toe position

The present study evaluates the active earth thrust exerted by sandy sloping ground on rigid retaining walls, investigating the critical effects of slope toe position (e) and slope height (h) that are often neglected in current design standards despite their significant influence on wall pressures. The solutions were obtained by performing finite element lower bound limit analysis with second order conic optimization techniques and presented in the form of non-dimensional earth pressure coefficient (Ka). The active earth thrust remains constant beyond a certain distance of slope toe from the back face wall, and height of slope, which are defined as critical toe distance (ecr) and critical slope height (hcr), respectively. The critical toe distance and slope height have been found to be influenced by the friction angle of soil (o), inclination of slope (B) and surcharge pressure (q) on the ground surface. The study shows that the magnitudes of Ka, ecr, and hcr increase with a reduction in the values of o and with an increase in the values of B and q. For a few typical cases, the proximity of stress state to failure was presented.