Calculation of lateral earth pressures with layered backfill

The objective of this paper is to investigate the situation of active and passive earth pressures on the back of a retaining wall with layered backfill. Most numerical results available in literature are applicable only to situations in which the backfill material is homogeneous. However, in reality, the backfill material is rarely homogeneous. This paper will investigate the behavior of a retaining wall by making use of FLAC to model a two-layered backfill. FLAC results will be compared with solutions obtained from classical earth pressure theory and rigorous numerical upper and lower bound limit analysis solutions.