78

Active pressure on gravity walls supporting purely

frictional soils
D. Loukidis and R. Salgado

Abstract: The active earth pressure used in the design of gravity walls is calculated based on the internal friction angle of
the retained soil or backfill. However, the friction angle of a soil changes during the deformation process. For drained load-
ing, the mobilized friction angle varies between the peak and critical-state friction angles, depending on the level of shear
strain in the retained soil. Consequently, there is not a single value of friction angle for the retained soil mass, and the active
earth pressure coefficient changes as the wall moves away from the backfill and plastic shear strains in the backfill increase.
In this paper, the finite element method is used to study the evolution of the active earth pressure behind a gravity retaining
wall, as well as the shear patterns developing in the backfill and foundation soil. The analyses relied on use of a two-surface
plasticity constitutive model for sands, which is based on critical-state soil mechanics.
Key words: finite elements, plasticity, retaining walls, sands.
Résumé : La pression active des terres utilisée dans la conception des murs gravitaires est calculée à partir de l’angle de
friction interne du sol ou du remblai retenu. Cependant, l’angle de friction d’un sol change durant le processus de déforma-
tion. Dans le cas d’un chargement drainé, l’angle de friction mobilisé varie entre l’angle de friction au pic et celui à l’état
critique, dépendant du niveau de déformation en cisaillement dans le sol retenu. En conséquence, il n’y a pas de valeur
unique d’angle de friction pour une masse de sol retenue, et le coefficient de pression active des terres varie à mesure que
le mur se sépare du remblai et que les déformations plastiques en cisaillement augmentent dans le remblai. Dans cet article,
la méthode par éléments finis est utilisée pour étudier l’évolution de la pression active des terres derrière un mur de soutène-
ment gravitaire, ainsi que les patrons de cisaillement qui se développent dans le remblai et dans le sol de fondation. Les ana-
lyses sont réalisées à l’aide d’un modèle constitutif de plasticité à deux surfaces pour des sables, qui est basé sur la
mécanique de l’état critique des sols.
Mots‐clés : éléments finis, plasticité, murs de soutènement, sables.
[Traduit par la Rédaction]

Introduction Caquot and Kerisel (1948) produced solutions in tabulated

form, assuming slip surfaces with logarithmic spiral shape.
The active earth pressure acting on the back of a retaining
More recently, Paik and Salgado (2003) estimated the active
wall controls its design. The active earth pressure is ex-
earth pressure behind rigid walls by improving the formula-
pressed as the product of the vertical effective stress s v0 in
tion of Handy (1985), which considers soil arching concepts.
the retained soil mass or backfill1 and the active earth pres-
Limit analysis has also been used to study the active earth
sure coefficient KA. The earliest and simplest methods for the
pressure problem. Rigorous upper bound values for KA estab-
calculation of the active earth pressure for purely frictional
lished by Chen (1975) and Soubra and Macuh (2002) using
backfills are those based on the Coulomb and Rankine theo-
limit analysis are in very close agreement with the values of Ca-
ries. For a backfill with horizontal surface, the Rankine solu-
quot and Kerisel (1948). Sokolovskiĭ (1965) solved the problem
tion is mathematically exact for a vertical and smooth wall
of active and passive earth pressure using the method of charac-
backface. Coulomb’s solution assumes a planar slip surface
teristics. More recently, Lancellotta (2002) provided a rigorous
and is equivalent to an upper bound solution. For a horizon-
lower-bound solution for active pressures in closed form:
tal backfill and a vertical wall backface, Coulomb’s solution

yields cosd
½2 KA ¼ ðcosd
1 þ sinf
½1 KA ¼
cos 2 f pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 2  sin 2 f  sin 2 dÞ e½darcsin ðsind=sinfÞ tanf
cosdf1 þ ½sin ðf þ dÞ sinf=cosdg

Received 21 March 2011. Accepted 26 September 2011. Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/cgj on 20 December 2011.
D. Loukidis. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Cyprus, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus.
R. Salgado. School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907-1284, USA.
Corresponding author: D. Loukidis (e-mail: loukidis@ucy.ac.cy).
1The paper is not restricted to backfilled walls. To call attention to applicability of the discussion to walls supporting natural ground as

well as completely backfilled walls, the terms “retained soil mass” and “backfill” are used interchangeably throughout.

Can. Geotech. J. 49: 78–97 (2012) doi:10.1139/T11-087 Published by NRC Research Press
Loukidis and Salgado
The upper bound values for KA by Coulomb’s solution,
Chen (1975), and Soubra and Macuh (2002) are very close
to the corresponding lower bound values using Lancellotta’s
equation (eq. [2]); the differences do not exceed 7%. The KA
values by Sokolovskiĭ (1965) lie between the narrow band
defined by these lower and upper bounds.
Lower and upper bounds produced by limit analysis are
valid for perfectly plastic soils following an associated flow
rule (dilatancy angle j equal to the friction angle f). In the
case of materials commonly used for backfills (sands and
gravels), j is significantly lower than f. In fact, the complex-
ity of soil behavior goes beyond the difference between j
and f, as discussed in detail later, but this does not appear
to have been studied in connection with the analysis of re-
taining walls.
Three stability checks are traditionally done in wall design,
namely bearing capacity failure, sliding, and toppling. In es-
sence, these checks deal with assuring vertical, horizontal,
and moment equilibrium of the wall. While these separate
checks are easy for engineers to understand and apply, the
horizontal and moment resistances that the foundation soil
(including any embedment in front of the wall) can provide
to the wall are in fact coupled with the vertical bearing ca-
pacity. For example, toppling failure occurs in theory when
the foundation load eccentricity e becomes greater than one-
half the foundation width B. Unless the wall base is resting
on rock or very stiff soil, the wall foundation will actually
fail due to the excessively high contact pressure at the wall
base caused by large load eccentricity before toppling. In ad-
dition, wall sliding on its base is more likely to have the form
of a shallow one-sided bearing capacity mechanism with a
large horizontal displacement component (Loukidis et al.
2008) rather than pure sliding along the base–soil interface.
This paper aims to investigate the gravity wall–soil interac-
tion and the development of these different failure scenarios
by modeling the soil mechanical behavior in a realistic way
in a series of finite element (FE) analyses. This allows the
development of displacement and stress fields within the soil
that are not constrained by the simplifying assumptions of
perfect plasticity and associativity. These results are useful in
informing design decisions, the most important of which
being how to calculate the active pressures on the backface
of the wall. The FE analyses, which take into account nonas-
sociativity, stress dependence of sand strength and dilatancy,
stress-induced anisotropy, fabric-induced anisotropy, and pro-
gressive failure, focus on the evolution of KA with wall dis-
placement u. This permits establishing the soil friction angle
value that is suitable for the estimation of the design KA
value, which is the one that corresponds to the wall displace-
ment required to bring the wall to an ultimate limit state
(ULS).
Problem statement
Dependence of active earth pressure on wall movement
In methods of analysis currently used in design practice,
the main input for the calculation of KA for purely frictional
backfills is the internal friction angle f of the soil. These
methods, which include the Rankine, Coulomb, and Lancel-
lotta methods discussed earlier, assume that f is constant, i.e.,
its value is the same at all points inside the backfill and
79
does not change as the wall moves. This would be valid
for a very loose backfill, where all soil elements reach fail-
ure directly at critical state (CS), with f equal to the CS
friction angle fc . However, most practical cases involve
backfills consisting of medium dense and dense sands and
gravels, which are strain-softening materials when sheared
under drained conditions, meaning that the mobilized fric-
tion angle of an element of any of these soils will first
reach a peak value fp and then decrease towards fc . Cer-
tain regions inside the backfill mass will fail and start to
soften early in the loading process. The shear strain level
developed in these regions may be large enough for the
friction angle to drop to its CS value fc before the wall
reaches a ULS, while f is close to fp in other regions.
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as progressive
failure. In addition, fp depends strongly on the level of
mean effective stress p′, which varies from point to point
inside the backfill and evolves continuously during wall
movement. It should also be noted that, given that retaining
walls have a much larger length than width, the deformation
of the backfill and foundation soil happens under plane-
strain conditions (so the CS friction angle is the plane-strain
CS friction angle (Loukidis and Salgado 2009)). Given that
the friction angle varies from point to point in the backfill,
the representative f value to be used in KA calculation
methods assuming perfect plasticity and associated flow is
unknown; it cannot be determined precisely based on intu-
ition or judgment.
Let us idealize the gravity wall initial condition as one in
which there has been no horizontal movement; as a result,
the coefficient of lateral earth pressure K is equal to its at-
rest value (K0). If we allow the wall to move away from the
backfill, K first decreases to a minimum value KA, min (point
M in Fig. 1) and then increases to an ultimate (residual)
value KA, cr (point C in Fig. 1). Between points M and C, the
supported soil is in an active state. Point M is associated with
an active state for which the average mobilized f in the sup-
ported soil is closer to fp than fc . Point C is associated with
full mobilization of CS (f ¼ fc ) along all failure surfaces
(shear bands) formed in the retained soil.
To design a wall, we are interested in the value of KA at a
limit state (KA, LS), which is not necessarily equal to either
KA, cr or KA, min. At present, there are two approaches to deter-
mine KA (Salgado 2008), one based on calculations using an
estimate of fp and the other using an estimate of fc . The for-
mer approach, which is most common in practice, would
underpredict the active earth pressure on the wall at the limit
state, making it unconservative. On the other hand, using fc
may be overly conservative, since a well-designed wall would
not move as much as to cause more than 20% shear strain in
the shear bands developing in the backfill before the wall
reaches its limit state (Salgado 2008). The following section
examines in more detail what happens between points M and
C, and what would constitute an appropriately defined ULS
for a gravity wall.
Wall limit state (WLS)
To establish KA, LS, we need first to establish a way to
identify the ultimate WLS. We must stress that, in establish-
ing a limit state, we are unconcerned with what the value of
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Loukidis and Salgado
stant). In the case of a retaining wall, the load to be sup-
ported is not constant because of the dependence of KA on
wall displacement. Therefore, the WLS can only be identified
by the stationary point of the Hr – Hd (or Mr – Md) versus u
curve and not of the Hr (or Mr) versus u curve. If FS < 1,
Hd – Hr (or Md – Mr) is always greater than zero and the
wall is unstable, meaning that artificial external forces would
need to be applied to the wall to establish equilibrium. In
other words, wall movement never manages to mobilize
enough resistance to balance driving forces. In this case, the
stationary point corresponds to the minimum value of these
external forces or, equivalently, the maximum value of Hr –
Hd (or Mr – Md). The WLS is therefore the state at which
the rate of increase (mobilization) of wall base resistance (in
terms of either force or moment) becomes smaller than the
rate of increase of the destabilizing actions (mainly the earth
thrust).
The goal of this paper is to study the evolution of KA with
wall displacement and establish an indication of the KA value
(and the appropriate f value for its calculation) at WLS con-
ditions. For this purpose, we perform FE analyses of the re-
taining wall stability problem using a two-surface constitutive
model for sands, which is based on CS soil mechanics. The
FE analyses are performed for a rigid gravity wall with a
rough vertical backface supporting soil with level surface
and purely frictional nature. The analyses apply to the typical
case of backfilled walls but also to walls retaining natural
ground if sandy or gravelly in nature. Both the retained soil
and foundation soils are sands. The analyses do not simulate
the several complex stages involved in the construction of
gravity walls (such as backfill laying and compaction), which
would lead to different initial stress conditions, but such is
not the focus of the analyses, which aim instead at bringing
out the details of the mechanics of wall loading not ad-
dressed in the literature and the implications and insights
that they offer.
FE methodology
FE mesh
The analyses use unstructured meshes consisting of eight-
noded, plane-strain quadrilateral elements with 12 quadrature
points. A typical FE mesh is shown in Fig. 2. It includes the
wall, the backfill soil, and the foundation soil. The wall has
a rectangular cross section, with width B and height H. The
thickness of the backfill soil layer is equal to H. The retain-
ing wall is embedded a distance D into the foundation soil.
All analyses start from an ideal state of the retained soil,
reached without the wall having moved or rotated (as if the
backfill soil had been placed in one lift instantaneously).
The wall is modeled as a block of linear elastic material
with very large Young’s modulus so that it can be consid-
ered rigid.
No interface elements are placed between the soil and the
wall; i.e., wall and soil share the same nodes along the corre-
sponding contact planes. As a consequence, slippage between
the wall and backfill occurs due to the formation inside the
soil mass of a shear band parallel to the wall backface. This
roughness condition is realistic given the rough materials
commonly used for gravity walls, such as masonry, concrete,
and cribs containing stone.
81
It is well known that analyses involving materials that
soften and follow a nonassociative flow rule suffer from the
problem of solution nonuniqueness. This means that, as the
mesh gets refined, the FE analysis results change, and con-
vergence to a unique solution does not happen. To tackle
this problem, FE analyses should either employ a regulariza-
tion approach (such as Cosserat or gradient plasticity) or use
meshes with element sizes consistent with the known shear
band thickness. The thickness of the soil elements inside the
shear bands simulating slippage between a rough structure
and granular soil is an important factor for the accurate pre-
diction of the shear resistance acting on the structure (Louki-
dis and Salgado 2008). Hence, the thickness of the backfill
soil elements that are in contact with the wall backface is set
equal to 5–20 times the mean particle diameter of the sand
(D50). This is roughly the thickness of the shear bands that
form in sandy soils, as observed in a number of experimental
studies (e.g., Uesugi et al. 1988; Vardoulakis and Sulem
1995; Nemat-Nasser and Okada 2001). Due to restrictions in
memory allocation and analysis runtime, the element sizes in
other locations where shear bands are expected to develop (i.e.,
inside the sliding wedge and in the foundation soil) were
larger than 5–20D50. Element size inside the sliding wedge
forming behind the wall was of the order of 500D50. As
shown later in the paper, this choice of the element size
has only a small impact on the analysis accuracy.
Constitutive model
The constitutive model used in this study is the two-surface
plasticity model based on CS soil mechanics developed
originally by Manzari and Dafalias (1997). The model was
subsequently modified by Li and Dafalias (2000), Papadimi-
triou and Bouckovalas (2002), Dafalias et al. (2004), and
Loukidis and Salgado (2009). The model parameters were
determined by Loukidis and Salgado (2009) for two sands:
air-pluviated or dry-deposited Toyoura sand (Iwasaki et al.
1978; Fukushima and Tatsuoka 1984; Lam and Tatsuoka
1988; Yoshimine et al. 1998) and water-pluviated or slurry-
deposited clean Ottawa sand (Carraro et al. 2003; Carraro
2004; Murthy 2006; Murthy et al. 2007). Toyoura sand is
a fine sand (D50 ≈ 0.2 mm) with angular to subangular par-
ticles, while Ottawa sand is a medium-sized sand (D50 ≈
0.4 mm) with rounded to subrounded particles. The model
considers four distinct surfaces having the form of open
cones in stress space: the bounding surface, dilatancy sur-
face, CS surface, and yield (loading) surface. Bounding and
critical surfaces represent peak and CS shear strengths, re-
spectively. The dilatancy surface divides the stress space
into two regions: inside the dilatancy surface, the soil plas-
tic behavior is contractive; outside it, it is dilative. The
yield (loading) surface defines a very narrow conical do-
main inside which the soil develops no plastic strain. The
yield surface hardens kinematically upon shearing, leading
to the development of plastic strains prior to failure.
Through this feature, the model simulates accurately the be-
havior of the soil at small and large strains. The constitutive
model takes into account the inherent anisotropy of sands
through the use of a fabric tensor (Dafalias et al. 2004),
and the assumption that the position of the CS line in the
void ratio (e) – mean effective stress (p′) space depends on
the direction of loading relative to the axis of sand deposi-
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82
Fig. 2. Typical mesh and boundary conditions used in the FE analyses. DOF, degree of freedom.
Fig. 3. Schematic showing the forces acting on the wall, including
the reactions, on nodes C and T due to the applied displacement on
these nodes. EA, x, EA, y, horizontal and vertical components of the
active earth thrust, respectively; Fx, horizontal foundation reaction;
Fy, vertical foundation reaction.
tion. It also accounts for the dependence of the soil friction an-
gle on the intermediate principal stress ratio b (stress-induced
anisotropy). Details of the constitutive model formulation,
the determination of its input parameters, and its use in
simulating element response in laboratory tests can be
found in Loukidis and Salgado (2009). The parameter val-
ues for the two sands considered in this study are shown
in Table A1 in the appendix along with a short summary
of their role in the model.
FE algorithms
The FE analyses were performed using the open-source
code SNAC (Abbo and Sloan 2000). The stress–strain rate
equations of the constitutive model were integrated using a
semi-implicit Euler algorithm with subincrementation and er-
ror control, details of which can be found in Loukidis (2006),
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 49, 2012
and a relative stress error tolerance of 0.01%. The FE analy-
ses were performed using the modified Newton–Raphson
global solution scheme, with the elastic stiffness matrix as
the global stiffness matrix.
All analyses start with an initial stage in which the geo-
static stress field is established in the FE mesh. The geostatic
stage includes two phases. In the first phase, gravity is ap-
plied to the mesh as a body force loading, and a uniform
pressure equal to g(H – D) is applied on the free surface of
the soil in front of the wall. These loadings are applied in
one increment (i.e., instantaneously). In addition, a geostatic
stress state is prescribed at every Gauss-quadrature point in
the mesh. The kinematic hardening stress (normalized back-
stress) tensor of the constitutive model is initialized so that
the stress state lies at the axis of the conical yield surface
(the initial stress state is inside the elastic domain). Because
the initial vertical stress values are set to be consistent with
applied gravity loading, equilibrium is reached instantly
through the execution of a single global solution step. In the
next phase, the uniform pressure acting on the free surface of
the soil in front of the wall is removed in a small number of
solution increments. During creation of the geostatic stress
field, the wall is not allowed to move horizontally but is free
to move vertically. The geostatic stage is followed by the
main analysis stage during which the wall is allowed to
move according to the scheme described next.
Wall loading
To achieve the goals of this study, we must be able to im-
pose large wall displacements from the initial position in
which the wall is in equilibrium with soil in an at-rest condi-
tion. In the beginning of the analysis, the wall is fully sup-
ported at two points, namely the crest (node C) and the toe
(node T), shown in Fig. 2, where the corresponding horizon-
tal reactions are RC,0 and RT,0, respectively (Fig. 3). These are
the forces required for full equilibrium, given the tractions
exerted on the wall by the surrounding soil at rest. Equiva-
lently, the wall is prevented to move horizontally or rotate be-
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Loukidis and Salgado
cause of the external application of a horizontal force Fext,0 =
RC,0 + RT,0 and a moment Mext,0 = RC,0/H. The analysis pro-
ceeds by the application of outward horizontal displacement
increments DuC and DuT (i.e., displacements pointing away
from the backfill) at nodes C and T (Fig. 3), while monitor-
ing the values of external force Fext = RC + RT, where RC
and RT are external reactions, and external moment Mext =
RC/H. Applying static equilibrium principles, the excess of
the driving forces throughout the process of wall movement
must be balanced by artificial external forces, which exist ex-
clusively for the purpose of performing the analysis. It can be
shown that Fext = Hd – Hr and Mext = Md – Mr, given that the
unbalanced forces at the end of each increment of the
Newton–Raphson solution are minimal (less than 1% of the
external forces). As the wall moves, Fext and Mext decrease
progressively. The wall is allowed to move vertically, since
no restraints are imposed on its nodes in the vertical direc-
tion. The prescribed displacements uC and uT are not constant
during the analysis and are not equal to each other. Their
magnitude varies in such a way that Fext and Mext (and conse-
quently RC and RT) change in the same proportion. This is
achieved by setting DuT = 0 (a pure rotation step) after any
analysis increment, resulting in Mext/Mext,0 > Fext/Fext,0, and
DuT = DuC (a pure translation step) after any analysis incre-
ment, resulting in Mext/Mext,0 ≤ Fext/Fext,0. This scheme relies
on the fact that the wall rotation has a stronger effect on the
rate of increase of Mext than of Fext, while wall translation has
a stronger effect on the rate of increase of Fext than of Mext.
The increment DuC is always equal to a specified value of
the order of 10–6H. Hence, the analyses consist of alternating
phases of pure wall rotation and pure wall translation. Appli-
cation of the loading in this manner, combined with the very
fine incrementation used in the present analyses, results in
Mext/Mext,0 ≈ Fext/Fext,0 (both ratios thus denoted by the single
variable Y) throughout the analysis. As a result, if the wall is
stable or marginally stable, Mext and Fext become equal to
zero simultaneously at which point the wall is completely un-
supported by external reactions (which means that this be-
comes a point of equilibrium at which the wall comes to a
rest). In addition, Mext/Mext,0 and Fext/Fext,0 reach their mini-
mum value (Ymin) simultaneously, which happens when
dMd = dMr and dHd = dHr. Therefore, referring to our pre-
vious discussion of the WLS, Ymin is reached at the WLS.
It should be noted that there is an infinite number of load-
ing path formulations that can bring the wall to a limit state,
and the formulation presented here is just one of them. The
present wall loading formulation makes it possible to perform
displacement-controlled analyses, instead of load-controlled
analyses that drive the wall to its limit state by increasing
the soil unit weight or a surcharge pressure. Displacement
controlled analyses allow the wall to move beyond the limit
state all the way to CS (a requirement of this study) for all
possible outcomes (stable, marginally stable, and unstable
walls). In contrast, load-controlled analyses cannot proceed
past the point of limit state. This is because any increase of
the applied load past this point results in unbalanced forces
that cannot be mitigated, since they increase with each
Newton–Raphson iteration. The formulation used here offers
also simplicity, allowing clear understanding of the mechan-
ics involved and straightforward derivation of conclusions
83
for a practical problem that is considerably complex once ex-
amined using rigorous mechanics.
In most field cases, the active state will be mobilized grad-
ually, and the wall base will translate and rotate as the back-
fill is constructed before reaching full height. Moreover, the
backfills placed behind gravity walls in practice are com-
pacted, resulting in initial stress conditions in each layer
larger than the K0 conditions assumed in this paper due to
locked-in stresses (which are difficult to simulate, requiring
three-dimensional FE analysis). These factors would generate
different stress paths in the soil mass than those produced in
our analyses. Problems involving materials that soften and
follow a nonassociative flow rule exhibit path dependence, i.e.,
the results depend on the stress paths followed at the stress
integration points of the mesh. Hence, it is expected that
the results of these analyses would be somewhat different
if the exact backfill construction process were simulated.
However, discrepancies due to wall motion during backfill
construction are believed to be small because most of the
wall displacement will occur when the backfill height is
near the wall height, since the earth thrust increases at least
quadratically with the rate of backfill height, taking also
into account that the soil friction angle would decrease due
to the increase in mean effective stress as the backfill rises.
Discrepancies due to non K0 initial conditions would exist
mostly during the early stages of the predicted response, de-
creasing as the active state were approached.
Results of FE simulations
Finite element analyses were performed for values of wall
width B, ranging from 1.5 to 3 m and wall height ranging
from 6 to 8 m. The sand unit weight g was set equal to
18 kN/m3. The wall unit weight was also set equal to 18 kN/m3,
which corresponds more closely to the unit weight of ma-
sonry, gabion, or a crib wall rather than a concrete wall.
The coefficient K0 was set equal to 0.5 in all analyses. No
surcharge is placed on the backfill free surface. The range
of the wall dimensions was chosen such that the wall FS is
not excessively high or excessively low. As will be shown
later, the FS of the wall configurations analyzed is in the
0.5–2.0 range. Analyses are performed for Toyoura and Ot-
tawa sands, with relative density DR ranging from 30% to
90%. For the sake of simplicity, the foundation soil is as-
sumed to be of the same type and density as the backfill
soil.
Collapse mechanism patterns
Most of the analyses were performed with the loading
scheme described in the previous section, which subjects the
wall to both rotation and horizontal translation in such a way
that the stabilizing external reactions RC and RT decrease pro-
portionally to each other. For comparison purposes, analyses
were performed with both the wall rotating about its heel
without translating horizontally (pure rotation case) and
translating horizontally without rotating (pure translation).
Figure 4 shows contours of the incremental maximum shear
strain gmax (= ɛ1 – ɛ3, where ɛ1 and ɛ3 are the major and mi-
nor principal strains, respectively) from analyses with pure
rotation, pure translation, and combination of rotation and
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84
Fig. 4. Examples of contours of incremental gmax from analyses with a wall subjected to different modes of movement: (a) pure rotation;
(b) rotation and translation; (c) pure translation (B = 3 m); (d) pure translation (B = 1.5 m).
translation. The deformation patterns depicted in these plots
correspond to states well beyond the WLS.
The failure mechanism in the backfill consists of a wedge-
shaped sliding mass delimited by the wall backface and an
oblique shear band originating from the heel of the wall.
This shear band, which is nearly straight, with a slight curva-
ture at its lower part, will be referred to in the remainder of
the paper as the main shear band. A shear band running par-
allel to the wall backface also forms in all analyses, repre-
senting sliding between the backfill sliding mass (wedge)
and the wall. In Figs. 4a and 4b, we see that families of sec-
ondary shear bands develop inside the sliding wedge. One of
the shear band families runs parallel to the main shear band.
The shear bands of the other family form an angle with re-
spect to the vertical of the same magnitude as the first family
but with opposite sign. This is consistent with observation
from the experiments performed by Milligan (1974) and the
newly reinterpreted radiographs of those experiments by
Leśniewska and Mróz (2001), as well as from the FE analy-
ses by Gudehus and Nübel (2004). The families of the secon-
dary shear bands vanish when the wall movement is a pure
translation (Figs. 4c, 4d), although a few secondary shear
bands that do not propagate fully, fading inside the sliding
mass, still form. Gudehus and Nübel (2004) also show that
the web of secondary shear bands inside the sliding wedge
present in the problem of a rotating wall is absent in the
case of a purely translating wall.
Below the wall base, a bearing capacity mechanism forms.
The shape of this mechanism resembles that of mechanisms
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 49, 2012
presented by Loukidis et al. (2008) for the case of surface
strip footings on purely frictional elastic – perfectly plastic
material loaded by eccentric and inclined loads. For analyses
with a wall movement that contains a translational component
(Figs. 4b–4d), the base mechanism is largely one-sided, con-
sisting of a fan region and a passive wedge. The same type of
mechanism can be seen in the examples of Fig. 5. This is
consistent with failure patterns observed in footings subjected
to inclined loads irrespectively of the value of the load eccen-
tricity (as long as the eccentric load lies on the side of the
footing base the horizontal component of the inclined load
points to). For a purely rotating wall (Fig. 4a), most of the
shearing in the base failure mechanism is concentrated in a
shear band that has the shape of a roughly circular arc, with
its end points lying on the two edges of the wall base. Louki-
dis et al. (2008) observed a similar pattern for footings
loaded by vertical eccentric loads.
Figure 5 shows contours of the incremental gmax from
analyses of walls that translate and rotate (the main loading
scheme used in the present paper) with a retained mass of
loose and dense sands. It is evident that the inclination angle
of the shear bands in the retained soil mass with respect to
the horizontal is larger in the case of dense than loose sand.
Based on the contours shown in Fig. 5, the shear band incli-
nation angle with respect to the horizontal is approximately
65° for DR = 90% and 55° for DR = 45%. The inclination
for 90% relative density is comparable to the values of the
shear band inclination observed in the centrifuge experiments
of Wolf et al. (2005) in very dense sands simulating the Rankine
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86
Fig. 6. Contours of incremental gmax from analysis with composite backfill.
stress distribution in the case of a nonrotating wall (Fig. 7c)
is more pronounced and happens at a shallower depth than in
the analyses with rotating walls (Figs. 7a, 7b). As a conse-
quence, the point of application of the horizontal earth thrust
for translating walls is higher than for rotating walls. This is
consistent with observations from experimental (Fang and
Ishibashi 1986) and numerical (Potts and Fourie 1986; Day
and Potts 1998) studies. After the minimum active state, the
curvature of the stress distribution decreases, and the average
distribution resembles again a triangular distribution, except
for purely translating walls.
The evolution of the lateral earth pressure coefficient K
with crest displacement uC is shown in Figs. 8 and 9. The K
coefficient is calculated from the lateral earth thrust, which is
in turn calculated by integrating numerically the horizontal
stress across the entire height of the wall. The stresses are
taken at the centroid of the elements that are in contact with
the wall. The results shown in Fig. 8 are all for Toyoura sand
with 60% relative density but different values of H, B, and D.
All analyses shown, except one, are for a wall subjected to
both translation and rotation. The K drops sharply towards a
minimum value (KA, min) at uC approximately equal to 0.003H
and, subsequently, rises smoothly, approaching an asymptotic
value (KA, cr) related to the development of CS in the main
shear band and inside the sliding wedge. According to
Fig. 8, KA, min and KA, cr are practically independent of the
wall dimensions and the embedment, which seem to only af-
fect the rate of increase towards CS. These differences in the
rate of increase are due to the resulting small differences in
the proportion of uT over uC between these analyses (i.e., dif-
ferences in how much of the motion is translation versus ro-
tation). The ratio uT/uC at the KA, min state (MPS) in the
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 49, 2012
analyses of Fig. 8 ranges from 0.17 to 0.28 and is roughly
proportional to the wall safety factor. Figure 8 also includes
the response from the analysis with a purely rotating wall,
which is in sharp contrast with the other analyses. The KA, min
for the purely rotating wall is about 38% higher than for walls
that both translate and rotate. More importantly, KA, min is
reached at uC equal to 0.016H, a much larger displacement
than for the other curves in Fig. 8. Moreover, transition from
KA, min to KA, cr is more gradual, K appearing to be almost con-
stant for a large range of uC values after the attainment of KA, min.
Model tests by Fang and Ishibashi (1986) demonstrate that
MPS is easily attained for a purely translating wall, with
only 0.0004H of wall displacement (in our purely translat-
ing wall analyses, the corresponding value is 0.001H). In
contrast, this state is not reached in a model test for a wall
in pure rotation about its base, even with 0.008H of crest
displacement. Large displacements for a purely rotating wall,
of the order of 0.015H, were needed in the model tests by
Milligan (1974) to reach the active state, which is comparable
to the value of 0.016H resulting from the present analysis.
Data reported by Fang and Ishibashi (1986) also support
the fact that a purely translating wall and a wall that both
translates and rotates develop similar KA, min values, but the
KA, min for a purely rotating wall is distinctively larger.
These findings suggest that the absence of a translation
component in the wall movement has an important effect on
the KA, min. Observed differences between wall problems in-
volving different movement modes are a consequence of the
path dependence and progressive failure inherent in problems
involving strain-softening materials. In contrast, analyses with
perfectly plastic materials following the Mohr–Coulomb fail-
ure criterion produce KA values that don’t depend on the wall
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Loukidis and Salgado 87

Fig. 7. Examples of distribution of horizontal stress acting on the Fig. 8. Variation of normalized lateral earth pressure coefficient with
wall backface at different stages during analyses, with H = 7 m, B = wall crest displacement from analyses with medium dense Toyoura
1.5 m, and D = 0.5 m and different modes of wall movement: sand (DR = 60%).
(a) Ottawa sand; (b, c) Toyoura sand.

Fig. 9. Variation of normalized lateral earth pressure coefficient with

wall crest displacement from analyses of a wall that is allowed to
translate and rotate, with H = 7 m, B = 1.5 m, and D = 0.5 m:
(a) Toyoura sand; (b) Ottawa sand.

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88
movement mode. As to the value of KA for a purely rotating
wall, Ichihara and Matsuzawa (1973) measured static KA of
0.16 for Toyoura sand with DR = 85% for a smoother wall
than considered here. This value still compares well with the
value of 0.172 for our analyses with purely rotating wall and
DR = 60%.
Finite element simulations for soils that strain soften and
follow nonassociated flow rules suffer from mesh depend-
ence. To assess the accuracy of our simulations, an analysis
with element size equal to 100D50, instead of 500D50, in the
region the sliding wedge develops was performed, and results
are also compared in Fig. 8. The differences between the
curves from the fine mesh analysis and the corresponding
coarse mesh analysis do not exceed 8%.
Figure 9 shows the K/K0 evolution resulting from analyses
with the same wall configuration (H = 7 m, B = 1.5 m, D =
0.5 m) for Toyoura and Ottawa sands with different values of
relative density. The figure also shows the KA/K0 value re-
sulting from FE analyses for an elastic – perfectly plastic
soil following the Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion (M–C
analyses) with f ¼ fc and j = 0 using the same code and
loading scheme as the main series of analyses. The fc for
plane-strain conditions (i.e., fc; PS ) for Toyoura and Ottawa
sand predicted by the two-surface constitutive model de-
scribed earlier is 36.6° and 34.6°, respectively. These values
are roughly 4°–5° larger than the fc values for triaxial com-
pression conditions (31.6° and 30.2°, respectively). To place
the KA calculated from fc in this manner in context, addi-
tional results are shown in Table 1. These results include
those of M–C analyses for associated flow (j = f) and non-
associated flow with j = 0 as well as the corresponding
limit analysis lower and upper bounds. The results for an as-
sociated flow rule are inside the lower and upper bounds.
The KA values for j = 0 are about 18% greater than those
for associated flow and lie above the KA range delimited by
the limit analysis bounds. As discussed in the introduction,
limit analysis holds for an associated flow rule, and numeri-
cal analysis is currently the only way to arrive at solutions
valid for problems with j << f.
As expected, KA, min decreases with increasing relative den-
sity and, consequently, peak friction angle. One would expect
that the curves for a given sand would tend to reach the same
asymptote, since fc is independent of DR. However, the
curves in Fig. 9 appear to have different asymptotes. Only
the curves for DR equal to 30% and 45% (loose to medium
dense sand) appear to approach the KA/K0 value from the
analysis with a perfectly plastic soil and material parameters
consistent with CS. The reason for the apparent differences in
KA, cr is the geometry of the failure mechanism in the back-
fill. The inclination of the sliding plane (main shear band)
delimiting the wedge depends on dilatancy and, conse-
quently, on the mobilized value of the internal friction angle.
According to Vardoulakis (1980), the theoretical value of the
shear band inclination with respect to the minor stress axis is
equal to 45° + ðf þ jÞ=4. The sliding wedge forms at the
state of minimum earth thrust, when the backfill mass close
to the wall is strongly dilative for all except very loose
sand.2 Once the main inclined shear band forms, it tends to
stay at that location because of strain localization. Hence, the
2For a very loose sand, j is close to zero; for a dense sand, it can be as high as 15°.
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 49, 2012
inclination of the shear bands is influenced by the sand den-
sity. The inclination of 57° observed in the analyses with
DR = 45% is only 1° higher than the theoretical value calcu-
lated for f ¼ fc and j = 0. On the other hand, the inclina-
tion of 65° for DR = 90% is clearly not consistent with a CS
friction angle and is influenced by sand dilatancy.
The shear patterns in the backfill mass remain virtually un-
changed during the analysis. Although the analyses with me-
dium dense and dense sand proceeded to crest displacements
up to 1 m, the formation of a new main shear band with in-
clination consistent with the CS friction angle was not ob-
served. It is not possible to assert whether such shear band
will form for even larger displacements and whether K will
approach the KA, cr values for j = 0 (refer to Table 1). For
practical purposes, at least, we may consider different KA, cr
values for different values of initial relative density, as a con-
sequence of different dilatancy-related soil wedges. Figures 5a
and 5b depict the collapse mechanisms at the end of the anal-
ysis, when the vast majority of quadrature points that lie in
the main shear band have practically reached CS. The in-
ferred KA, cr for the dense sand is distinctively different from
the expected value for f ¼ fc and j = 0 because the defor-
mations are localized, and the CS is mobilized inside a
wedge that forms a steeper angle with the horizontal than
the one that is consistent with the perfectly plastic problem
with f ¼ fc and j = 0. The effect of the shape of the sliding
wedge on the KA, cr is also evident in the analysis with compo-
site backfill (Fig. 6), in which the main shear band exhibits a
sharp bend. Although the sliding mass encompasses sand with
DR = 75% and 45% and the KA, min is closer to the value for a
uniform backfill with DR = 75%, KA, cr is closer to the value
for a uniform backfill with DR = 90%. This is most likely due
to the main shear band, which is not a straight line (which it
is in the uniform backfill case) but has a bend in the compo-
site backfill case. This result suggests that significant addi-
tional benefit can be achieved by using such types of
composite backfills, since they produce KA, cr values that are
smaller than those corresponding to the densest soil placed
behind the wall.
WLS
As discussed previously, the WLS is represented by the
point at which Y reaches a minimum value Ymin. Figures 10
and 11 show the development of the horizontal base resist-
ance Hb and the moment base resistance Mb as the wall
moves away from the backfill. These resistances also include
contributions from the soil in front of the wall toe (what
would typically be thought of as passive resistance). The mo-
ment resistance Mb is calculated about the center of the wall
base. From Figs. 10 and 11, we see that the wall reaches its
limit state before the peaks in Hb and Mb (i.e., before base
failure). This is because the base resistance develops only
very gradually, with increasing wall displacement due to the
large amount of plastic straining that real soil exhibits before
the peak friction angle is reached (which is captured by the
constitutive model used here) and to the progressive failure
of the soil mass (i.e., the early development of softening in
certain regions in the base soil mass). This is particularly
true for loose sands for which peak base resistance is reached
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Loukidis and Salgado 89

Table 1. KA/K0 from FE analyses with elastic – perfectly plastic soil and corresponding limit analysis lower and upper bounds.

FEM (elastic –
perfectly plastic) Lower bound Upper bound Upper bound (Soubra and
f (°) j=f j=0 (Lancellotta 2002) (Chen 1975)* Macuh 2002)*
36.6 0.403 0.480 0.404 0.393 0.396
34.6 0.437 0.505 0.444 0.432 0.436
Note: FEM, finite element method.
*Interpolated values based on plotted or tabulated data.

Fig. 10. Evolution of key problem variables with increasing wall crest displacement for (a) loose and (b) dense Toyoura sand and wall with
H = 7 m, B = 1.5 m, and D = 0.5 m. Deax/H, relative height of active thrust application; FSH, FS based on horizontal equilibrium; FSM, FS
based on moment equilibrium; m (= tand), mobilized friction coefficient at wall backface.

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90
Fig. 11. Evolution of key problem variables, with increasing wall crest displacement for (a) loose and (b) dense Ottawa sand and wall with
H = 7 m, B = 1.5 m, and D = 0.5 m.
only at very large wall displacements (Figs. 10a and 11a).
The WLS is reached when the slow base resistance develop-
ment can no longer match the increase in destabilizing ac-
tions due to the increase of KA towards KA, cr. The WLS can
be described mathematically as the state at which dHr = dHd
or dMr = dMd; beyond the WLS, gains in resistance do not
match gains in driving forces (i.e., dHr < dHd or dMr <
dMd). If the active earth thrust were constant (dHd = 0 and
dMd = 0), then the wall would keep moving until the bearing
capacity were reached, and the WLS would coincide with the
state of peak Hb or peak Mb (base failure state). In our retain-
ing wall problem, this does not happen because the earth
Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 49, 2012
thrust increases (i.e., dHd > 0 and dMd > 0) with wall dis-
placement past the KA, min state. As a consequence, the wall
displacement required to reach the WLS is smaller than that
required to reach base failure.
Although WLS and base failure state occur at distinctively
different wall crest displacements, the Hb and Mb values at
WLS are practically identical to the peak Hb and Mb values.
This occurs because, after attainment of the WLS, Hb and Mb
increase at very small rates towards their peak values due to
the development of regions of intense plastic straining in the
foundation soil. Consequently, the peak Hb and Mb values,
which can be determined in practice with relative ease based
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96
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Published by NRC Research Press
Loukidis and Salgado 97

Appendix A
Table A1. Values of constitutive model parameters for Toyoura and clean Ottawa sands.

Parameter value
Parameter Clean
Parameter symbol Toyoura sand Ottawa sand Comment
Small-strain (“elastic”) n 0.15 0.15* Poisson’s ratio
parameters Cg 900 611 Parameter controlling the magnitude of the maximum shear
modulus Gmax
ng 0.400 0.437 Exponent controlling the rate of increase of Gmax with effec-
tive confining stress
g1 0.0010 0.000 65 Parameters controlling the decrease of “para-elastic” shear
a1 0.40 0.47 modulus G with shear strain
CS Gc 0.934 0.780 Intercept of CS line in e–p′ space
l 0.019 0.081 Parameter controlling inclination of CS line in e–p′ space
x 0.70 0.196 Parameter controlling curvature of CS line in e–p′ space
Mcc 1.27 1.21 Critical stress ratio in triaxial (TX) compression conditions
Bounding surface kb 1.5 1.9 Parameter controlling the increase of friction angle with
sand density
Dilatancy Do 0.90 1.31 Inclination of the stress–dilatancy curve
kd 2.8 2.2 Parameter controlling the stress ratio at phase transformation
Plastic modulus h1 1.62 2.20 Parameters controlling the magnitude of plastic modulus
h2 0.254 0.240
elim 1.00 0.81 Upper limit for void ratio for which the plastic modulus be-
comes zero
m 2.0 1.2 Parameter controlling stress ratio in undrained instability
state
Stress-induced c1 0.72 0.71 Ratio of the critical stress ratio in TX extension to that in
anisotropy TX compression
c2 0.78 0.78* Parameter controlling the value of the magnitude of inter-
mediate principal stress relative to the two other principal
stresses under plain-strain conditions
ns 0.35 0.35* Parameter controlling the magnitude of the friction angle in
plane-strain conditions relative to the friction angle in TX
compression
Inherent anisotropy a 0.29 0.31 Parameter controlling the intercept of CS line in e–p′ space
under conditions other than TX compression
kh 0.11 0.39 Parameter controlling the variation of plastic stiffness, with
the direction of loading relative to the axis of sand de-
position
m 0.05 0.05 Radius of conical yield (loading) surface
*Assumed.

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