POTENTIALS FOR OPTIMIZATION OF RETAINING WALLS’ DESIGN

The purpose of this paper is to review a more modern, but insufficiently applied approach for the calculation of active earth pressure on retaining structures. Namely, when interpreting the shearing resistance of soil materials, the theory of Mohr-Coulomb-Terzaghi is most often used, with which it is assumed that the linear function is a sufficiently accurate description of the failure in the soil in total domain of stresses: both below and above those applied during laboratory investigations. However, numerous tests in a wide stress domain have undoubtedly shown that the failure envelope of the soil material is not linear. The behavior of the soil under a different range of normal stresses indicates doubt in the constancy of the angle of internal friction for any state of stresses for the same soil material, which is why, between the many geotechnical structures and works, the analysis of the actions on the retaining walls will have to undergo changes. Namely, as there is difference in the shearing resistance parameters determined through linear and non-linear failure envelopes, the same applies to the earth pressures on the retaining walls, especially in the zone of low stresses, as such are most common behind them. In the paper, a comparison of these two theories for interpretation of shearing resistance and their influence on the active earth pressure is made.