Seismic active earth pressure from the sloping c-ϕ soil backfills

This technical note presents the analytical derivation of an explicit expression for the total seismic active earth pressure from the sloping c-φ{symbol} soil backfills on the rigid retaining walls. The derivation considers several practical aspects such as wall friction and adhesion, tension cracks in the backfill, and a uniform surcharge on the backfill along with both horizontal and vertical seismic loadings. The development of an explicit analytical expression for the critical inclination of the failure plane within the soil backfill is also described. It is shown that the analytical expressions give the same results for simpler special cases previously reported in the literature for both non-seismic and seismic problem conditions. © 2013 Indian Geotechnical Society.