Nonlinear Active Earth Pressure Distribution Based on Coulomb's Theory

On the basis of coulomb’s concept that the active earth pressure against the back of a retaining wall is due to the thrust force exerted by a sliding wedge of soil between the back of the wall and a plane which passes through the bottom edge of the wall and has an inclination of θ, two basis differential equations of first order are set up by considering the equilibrium of the forces and the moments on a partial wedge of soil. The distributing coefficient of active earth pressure is obtained through comparing two basis equations. The unit earth pressure and the application point of the resultant force are deduced. The effects of parameters such as the internal frictional angle of backfill, the frictional angle between the wall back and the backfill, slope angle of filling and dip angle of wall back on distributing coefficient of active earth pressure, the unit earth pressure, the application point of the resultant force, rupture angle are analyzed in detail. Meanwhile the non-linear distributing features are concluded.