DEM analysis of passive failure in structured sand ground behind a retaining wall

Jiang, Mingjing; Niu, Maoyi; Zhang, Wangcheng

Abstract

Assessment of active and passive earth pressures is of crucial importance in design of retaining structures. This paper aims to explore the progressive failure mechanism towards the passive state of natural sand ground, and to quantify the lateral earth pressure, resultant force and overturning moment on the retaining wall under both translational and rotational movement modes. A numerical modelling using the two-dimensional (2D) Discrete Element Method (DEM) is conducted with an advanced micro contact model considering the inter-particle bond strength of natural sand. Rankine theory based semi-analytical solutions of the lateral earth pressure and resultant force/moment have been proposed and compared with the numerical data. The results show that not only the wall movement mode but also the inter-particle bond strength has significant effects on the progressive formation of shear failure zone and mobilization characteristics of earth pressure. The larger the inter-particle bond strength is, the higher the lateral earth pressure can be mobilized, and hence more significant post-peak softening can be produced. The proposed solution can well describe the progressive mobilization of earth pressure towards the passive state and the post-peak softening state at rotational movement modes, potentially optimizing the design of retaining structures.

Citation

Jiang, M., Niu, M., & Zhang, W. (2022). DEM analysis of passive failure in structured sand ground behind a retaining wall. Granular Matter, 24(2), Article 61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-022-01220-y

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 9, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Deposit Date: May 17, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 15, 2023
• Journal: Granular Matter
• Print ISSN: 1434-5021
• Electronic ISSN: 1434-7636
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 61
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-022-01220-y
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1207336