Relationship between earth pressure and wall displacement based on Coulomb earth pressure model

The magnitude of earth pressure is greatly influenced by wall displacement. Based on the viewpoint that the relationship between wall displacement and lateral earth pressure is the macroscopic embodiment of soil stress-strain behavior, the relationship between soil shear displacement and shear stress is transformed into the wall displacement-earth pressure curve by using the geometric and equilibrium equation. The analysis indicates that the wall displacement-lateral earth pressure curve is primarily governed by the active or passive zones, initial stress state of retaining soil mass and soil stress-strain behavior. The passive zone is more easily changed with the interface friction angle compared with the active one, making that the wall displacement-lateral curve from the initial state to the passive state is affected by the interface friction angle more significantly. The influence of initial earth pressure state lies in the lateral pressure coefficient K₀ at rest, and the required wall displacement reaching the active state tends to grow with the increase of K₀, while the required displacement reaching the passive state tends to decline. Reasonable agreement between the results of model tests and the predicted values using the proposed method shows that the solution can provide accurate relationship between lateral earth pressures and wall displacement.