Analysis of lateral soil pressures for reinforced earth retaining wall based on quasi-cohesive concept

Considering the effect of reinforcement,this paper discusses strength of reinforced earth for different failure modes.And then,based on the quasi cohesive concept,theoretical formulae of lateral soil pressure for reinforced earth retaining wall are obtained for two failure modes.Analytical results show: cohesive force of reinforced earth has increment for the tensile failure,angle of internal friction has increment for the adhesion failure;lateral soil pressures value using proposed formula are smaller than using classical earth pressure theories and variational coefficient method of earth pressure,and will increase with increasing of the vertical spacing of the reinforcement,for tensile failure and adhesion failure;active lateral soil pressures by the proposed formula for tensile failure will decrease with increasing of the tensile strength of the reinforcement.The calculating results by this paper's method basically accord with results of the site tests in geogrid reinforced earth retaining wall,and theoretical values for adhesion failure are bigger than tested values.