Analysis of the stress distribution across a retaining wall backfill

A computationally efficient, analytical approach to evaluate the stress distribution across a frictional-cohesive backfill behind a rigid retaining wall under static conditions is presented herein. The vertical slice method, commonly adopted in log-spiral type, limit-equilibrium earth pressure assessment methods, was further discretized into dices to capture the variation in stresses in the backfill. Effective local and global iterative schemes were devised to search for the solution of the highly coupled multivariate equation system. The distribution of the normal and shear stresses yielded by the proposed dice method demonstrates good agreement with the results obtained from the finite element analyses.