Slip surface in narrow backfill behind retaining wall

Abstract

For a particular area in Geotechnical engineering, a soil slope is defined as a surface of soil mass which is inclined. It the slope is unstable or has insufficient factor of safety, then it needs to be strengthened by a retaining wall or a particular earth reinforcement to ensue slope failure does not occur. It has long been known that the pattern of slip failure is classified into two main types: translation and rotation. Other patterns of slip failure can be approached within the two mentioned types above. The main purpose of this classification is to assist the engineers in the process of the the stability analysis in purpose to obtain the safety factor of the slope and the reinforcement system if any. For the retaining wall reinforcement analysis, the developed method is generally in the form of soil pressure behind the wall. The pressure due to the self weight of the soil is generated by assuming the backfill is long enough, so that the slip failure can be fully described according to the two main types above. Then in cases where the backfill behind the wall is quite narrow, the method should be corrected or modified. These narrow areas are often found on roads that are built on relatively steep slopes. In this paper, the form of the slip failure behind a narrow retaining wall is presented. The results of this study are very useful for developing analytical methods for retaining soils that are built in narrow areas due to location limitations.