Estimation of active earth pressure based on pseudo-dynamic approach and discretization technique

Abstract

A method combining the pseudo-dynamic approach and discretization technique is carried out for computing the active earth pressure. Instead of using a presupposed failure mechanism, discretization technique is introduced to generate the potential failure surface, which is applicable to the case that soil strength parameters have spatial variability. For the purpose of analyzing the effect of earthquake, pseudo-dynamic approach is adopted to introduce the seismic forces, which can take into account the dynamic properties of seismic acceleration. A new type of micro-element is used to calculate the rate of work of external forces and the rate of internal energy dissipation. The analytical expression of seismic active earth pressure coefficient is deduced in the light of upper bound theorem and the corresponding upper bound solutions are obtained through numerical optimization. The method is validated by comparing the results of this paper with those reported in literatures. The parametric analysis is finally presented to further expound the effect of diverse parameters on active earth pressure under non-uniform soil.

Keywords

pseudo-dynamic approach / discretization technique / upper-bound analysis / inhomogeneity / seismic active earth pressure coefficient

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