Kinematical analysis of 3D passive earth pressure with nonlinear yield criterion |
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| Authors: | Xiaoli Yang Zhengwei Li |
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| Institution: | School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Hunan, China |
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| Abstract: | Conventional methods for calculation of passive earth pressure were mainly based on the assumptions of the linear Mohr‐Coulomb yield condition and plane strain failure mechanism. However, both theoretical and experimental studies have shown that such assumptions are not satisfied in some geotechnical projects. Herein, a novel method incorporating a kinematically admissible 3‐dimensional (3D) rotational failure mechanism and the nonlinear power‐law yield criterion is proposed to compute the passive earth pressure acting on the inclined retaining walls. Instead of using the nonlinear yield criterion directly, a straight line tangential to the nonlinear yield curve is employed to represent the strength of soils, and therefore, the nonlinear problem is transformed into the traditional linear problem. The 3D failure mechanism is generated through rotating a circle defined by 2 log‐spirals, and a plane strain block is inserted into the mechanism to consider the retaining walls with different widths. Earthquake effects are taken into account by using quasi‐static representation, and the horizontal seismic coefficient concept is adopted for the estimation of passive earth pressure under seismic conditions. An analytical expression about the 3D passive earth pressure is educed by means of the upper bound theorem of limit analysis. Numerical results for different practical parameters are obtained from an optimization scheme where the minimum of passive earth pressure is sought. Compared with available 2‐dimensional and 3D solutions, the proposed method is validated. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of different parameters on the 3D static and seismic passive earth pressure. |
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| Keywords: | 3D rotational mechanism nonlinear yield criterion passive earth pressure |
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