Earth pressure coefficients based on the Lade-Duncan failure criterion

The Mohr-Coulomb criterion has been extensively used to model the static and dynamic behaviour of retaining walls in both analytical and numerical studies, the main advantage being its simplicity. In the field of computational geomechanics, more sophisticated soil models have been proposed which take account of the intermediate principal stress a,, giving rise to an increase in the equivalent friction angle when analysing plane strain problems. In this paper, a kinematic elasto-plastic soil model incorporating a Lade-Duncan failure criterion is used to calculate modified active and passive earth pressure coefficients for retaining walls. The results of the finite-element analysis are compared to an analytical study and found to be in good agreement once an approximation of the Lode angle at failure is made. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.