Transportation Geotechnics 33 (2022) 100712

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Transportation Geotechnics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trgeo

Active earth pressure on non-yielding retaining walls with geofoam blocks

and granular backfills
Kewei Fan a, b, Jun Yan b, *, Weilie Zou a, c, Zhong Han a, c, *, Zhiqiang Lai c, d
a
School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
b
Key Laboratory of Construction and Safety of Water Engineering of the Ministry of Water Resources, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research,
Beijing 100048, China
c
Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics in Hydraulic Structural Engineering of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
d
Key Laboratory of Yellow River Sediment Research, Ministry of Water Resources, Zhengzhou 450003, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Geofoam blocks are typically used as buffer layers behind non-yielding retaining walls to reduce the lateral earth
Non-yielding retaining wall pressure. The interaction between the geofoam blocks and the backfills is essential for the determination of the
Geofoam blocks earth pressure and thus the design of the geofoam blocks. In this study, two-dimensional model tests of aluminum
Granular backfills
rod mass as filling soils were conducted to study the lateral earth pressure acting on a non-yielding wall with
Model tests
geofoam blocks. The following observations were obtained: (i) the compression of the geofoam blocks increases
linearly or bi-linearly along the wall height, depending on the stress level; (ii) a clear slip surface can be observed
in the aluminum rod mass, which is consistent with the assumptions of the Coulomb’s active earth pressure
theory. Considering the deformation of the geofoam blocks and the backfills, a series of equations were proposed
for calculating the earth pressure on the non-yielding wall with geofoam blocks and granular backfills. The earth
pressure calculated by the proposed equations agrees well with the experimental measurements.

Introduction [8,9,1,28,30].
The interaction between the geofoam blocks and the backfills, such
Retaining walls are structures designed to hold back soils and resist as their deformation and failure mechanism, is the key question for the
their lateral pressure [15,17,10]. Non-yielding retaining walls, which determination of the lateral pressure on the wall and the design of the
are those fixed against rotation and horizontal displacement, such as geofoam blocks. However, the deformation of the EPS geofoam block
concrete gravity retaining walls, are widely used in road engineering to and the failure of the backfills were rarely studied in the current liter­
maintain the stability of subgrade slope [19,5,34,35]. They are simple in ature because they are difficult to observe. In this paper, 2D model tests
form, convenient for construction, and yield only small displacement were therefore conducted to study (i) the lateral deformation of the
under lateral earth pressure [13,2,14,4,21]. However, high-quality geofoam blocks behind a non-yielding retaining wall, (ii) the displace­
foundations are required due to their large self-weight [22,16]. ment and failure of the backfills, and (iii) the lateral earth pressure
McGown et al. [20] proposed to place deformable geofoam blocks acting on the wall. Considering the lateral deformation of the geofoam
between the retaining wall and the backfills to reduce the thickness of blocks and the backfills, a series of equations was proposed for calcu­
the non-yielding retaining walls and improve their seismic performance. lating the active earth pressure on the non-yielding retaining wall.
They suggested that the compression of the geofoam blocks allows the
lateral deformation of the backfills and alters the lateral earth pressure Experimental investigation
from the at-rest state to the active state. Consequently, the lateral earth
pressure is reduced. In recent years, numerous experiments have been The 2D model tests were performed in an 80 cm long, 10 cm thick
carried out to investigate the performance of geofoam blocks with and100 cm high rectangular iron frame without front and rear baffles, as
different densities and thicknesses in reducing the earth pressure shown in Fig. 1. The left side of the iron frame is high in rigidity and used

* Corresponding authors at: Key Laboratory of Construction and Safety of Water Engineering of the Ministry of Water Resources, China Institute of Water Resources
and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, China (J. Yan); School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China (Z. Han).
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Yan), [email protected] (Z. Han).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trgeo.2021.100712
Received 27 August 2021; Received in revised form 15 November 2021; Accepted 22 December 2021
Available online 27 December 2021
2214-3912/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Fan et al. Transportation Geotechnics 33 (2022) 100712

to simulate the non-yielding retaining wall in the model. A 10 cm thick,

30 cm wide, and 70 cm high geofoam block was used as the inclusion.
The unit weight of the geofoam block was 8 kg/m3.
The compressive stress–strain relationship of the geofoam was
determined by testing 50 mm cubes under strain-controlled unconfined
compression loading at a strain rate of 10%/min, as shown in Fig. 2. The
stress–strain curve of the geofoam is approximately bi-linear within the
strain range of 20%. The boundary strain εint is at about 3%, which
corresponds to a boundary stress σint of 16.5 kPa. The initial tangent
modulus Et1 is 1.833 MPa and the tangent modulus at strain level higher
than 3%, Et2 is 0.520 MPa.
An assembly of 10 cm long aluminum rods was placed behind the
geofoam block to simulate the backfills [26,23,32]. The aluminum rods
have two diameters: 3 mm and 6 mm. The ratio between the mass of 3
mm rods to that of 6 mm rod is 3:2. The aluminum rod mass had a void
ratio of 0.24 and a dry unit weight γ of 21.4kN/m3. The advantages of
modeling backfill using aluminum rod mass include: (i) the specific
gravity Gs of aluminum rods (2.69) is close to that of native soils
[18,6,31]; (ii) there is no need to confine the front and back faces of the
aluminum rod mass; (iii) it is easy to capture the movement of the rods
using particle image velocimetry (PIV) technology. The internal friction Fig. 2. Stress–strain relationship of the geofoam during unconfined
angle φ of the aluminum rod mass was obtained from biaxial shear tests, compression.
which is 21.6◦ .
On the surface of the aluminum rod mass, vertical uniform loads Testing results
were applied through a 40 cm by 10 cm loading plate to simulate the
overburden pressure. The applied vertical load increased until the ver­ Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the measured lateral earth pressure
tical displacement reached 60 mm. To measure the lateral earth pres­ on the wall when the normal stresses q on the loading plate was 15 kPa,
sures on the back of the rigid wall, six earth pressure cells were installed 35 kPa, and 60 kPa. The following observations can be obtained:
along the wall height at an interval of 0.1 m between the wall and the
geofoam block. (i) The lateral earth pressure is smaller than the static earth pressure
A camera was positioned in front of the model test to record the σ 0 (σ 0 = (γh+q)(1-sinφ), where h is the wall height, γ = 21.4kN/
movement of the aluminum rods at a frequency of 4 s. The photos were m3, φ = 21.6◦ ), which confirms that geofoam inclusions can
post-processed by the PIV technology to derive the movement of the effectively reduce the lateral earth pressure.
aluminum rods and thus the deformation of the backfills. PIV is a (ii) Since the earth pressure against the back of the EPS geofoam
frequently used and powerful experimental tool in fluid mechanics and block is due to the thrust exerted by the sliding wedge when the
aerodynamics [27,33,24]. Its basic principle involves the photographic block deforms, the lateral earth pressure behind the wall is
recording of the motion of microscopic particles. Image processing approximately linear.
methods are then used to determine the particle motion from photo­
graphic recordings which constitutes the entire velocity field. In the 2D Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the instantaneous movement of the
model tests, PIV was used to capture the motion of the aluminum rods. If backfill rod mass. A slip surface can be observed in the backfill. As a
aluminum rods are of the same size, it would be difficult to precisely result of the compression of the geofoam block under the action of earth
capture the trajectories between them. Due to this reason, aluminum pressure, the angle of inclination of the slip surface decreased (see
rods 3 mm and 6 mm in diameter were chosen in this test. Fig. 4).
Figure 5 summarizes the distribution of the lateral compressive
displacement of the geofoam block along the wall height at the plate
load of 15 kPa, 35 kPa, 60 kPa. At plate load of 15 kPa, the stress along

Fig. 1. (a) photo of the geofoam block and aluminum rods, (b) schematic diagram and (c) photo of the iron frame in the 2D model test.

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K. Fan et al. Transportation Geotechnics 33 (2022) 100712

the wall height is less than the σ int (i.e., 16.5 kPa, see Fig. 3a) and the
compressive strain of the geofoam is less than the εint of 3%. Therefore,
the tangent modulus of the entire geofoam block equals Et1 and the
distribution of the displacement of the geofoam block along the wall
height is linear and less than 0.9 cm (i.e., 30 cm × 3% = 0.9 cm). On the
other hand, at plate load of 60 kPa, the stress along the wall height is
higher than the σ int (see Fig. 3c) and the compressive strain of the
geofoam block is higher than the εint of 3%. Thus, the tangent modulus of
the geofoam block equals Et2 and the distribution of the displacement of
the geofoam block along the wall height is also linear and higher than
0.9 cm. When the plate loading is 35 kPa, the upper portion of the wall
has lateral stress less than 16.5 kPa while the lower portion of the wall
has a lateral stress exceeding16.5 kPa (see Fig. 3b). Accordingly, the
tangent modulus of the geofoam block is Et1 at the upper portion and Et2
at the lower portion. Because of this, the displacement of the geofoam
block is bi-linear, as shown in Fig. 6.

Approach for calculating the lateral active earth pressure

Coulomb’s theory assumes a linear distribution of the active earth

pressure. The active earth pressure is obtained based on the equilibrium
of forces acting on a whole sliding wedge [7]. This approach is widely
used in conventional geotechnical design [12,25,29,11,3]. In this 2D
model test, the experimental phenomena are consistent with the as­
sumptions of the Coulomb’s theory. Therefore, the assumptions of the
Coulomb’ theory are used to calculate the active lateral earth pressure
on non-yielding retaining walls with geofoam block and granular
backfills.
Based on the model test results, it is first assumed that the earth
pressure against the back of a retaining wall is due to the thrust exerted
by a sliding wedge of soil which has an inclination (relative to the
horizontal) of θ, as shown in Fig. 6. The boundary of the sliding wedge
near the geofoam block is bilinear, which has an inclination (relative to
the vertical) of α1 and α2, respectively. Dividing the sliding wedge into
part A and part B. The forces acting on part A include the vertical
pressure (q), the earth pressure reaction of the geofoam block (E1), the
reaction of the soil at rest (R1), the normal reaction of part B (Nr), and
the weight of part A (G1). While the forces acting on part B include the
earth pressure reaction of the geofoam block (E2), the reaction of the soil
at rest (R2), the normal reaction of part A (Nr), and the weight of part B
(G2).
According to the sines law, the following correlations can be ob­
tained:
E1 = (G1 + qb1 - Nr )m (1)

E2 = (G2 + Nr )n (2)

where m = sin(θ − φ)/cos(θ + α1 − δ − φ) and n = sin(θ − φ)/cos(θ +

α2 − δ − φ). δ is the frictional angle between the back of the geofoam
block and the backfill rods, and b1 is the length of the upper face of part
A.
Assuming the lateral earth pressure is linear, E1 and E2 can also be
written as

E1 = (γh21 /2 + qh1 )Ka (3)

( )
E2 = [γ H 2 − h21 /2 + q(H − h1 )]Ka (4)

where h1 is the height of part A, Ka is the active pressure coefficient.

Substitute Eqs. (3) and (4) into Eqs. (1) and (2), the following
Fig. 3. Distribution of the lateral earth pressures on the wall at the plate equation can be obtained.
loading of (a) 15 kPa, (b) 35 kPa and (c) 60 kPa.
(G1 + G2 + qb1 )mn
Ka = (5)
(γ(H 2 − h21 )/2 + q(H − h1 ))m + (γh21 /2 + qh1 )n

where G1 = γh1 (b1 + b2 )/2 and G2 = γ(H − h1 )b2 /2. b2 is the length of

3
K. Fan et al. Transportation Geotechnics 33 (2022) 100712

Fig. 4. Distribution of the instantaneous movements of the backfills under different plate loading.

Fig. 5. Distribution of the lateral compressive displacement of the geofoam Fig. 6. Equilibrium of forces acting on the Coulomb failure wedge.
block under different normal stresses.

tanα2 = γKa /Et2 (11)

the lower face of part A.
According to the geometric relationship, b1 and b2 can be expressed To find the maximum active earth pressure E (E = E1 + E2 = (γH2 /
as 2 + qH)Ka ), differentiating E with respect to θ and setting the result
equal to zero, give
b1 = (H − h1 )d + h1 c (6)
dE
b2 = (H − h1 )d (7) =0 (12)
dθ
The explicit expression of E is very complex. Instead, it can be solved
where c = cos(θ+
cosα1 sinθ and d =
α1 ) cos(θ+α2 )
cosα2 sinθ . by the adopting try-and-error method. Namely, on the premise of
Substitute Eqs. (6) and (7) into Eq. (5), Ka can be written as satisfying Eqs. (9) to (11), substituting α1, α2, h1, and θ with different
[γ(2h1 (H − h1 )d + h21 c + (H − h1 )2 d) + 2qb1 ]mn values into Eq. (8) to maximize the earth pressure E. Thus, the lateral
Ka = (8) earth pressure El can be obtained.
[γ((H 2 − h21 ) + (H − h1 )2 ) + 2q(H − h1 )]m + (γh21 + 2qh1 )n
( )
El = [(γh21 /2 + qh1 )cosα1 + (γ H 2 − h21 /2 + q(H − h1 ))cosα2 ]Ka (13)
where δ, φ, γ, and H are constants, α1, α2, h1, and θ are variables.
Nevertheless, α1, α2, and h1 are relevant to Ka , they can be expressed as When the compression strain ε of the geofoam block along the wall
height is less or greater than εint, Eq. (8) can be written as
(γh1 + q)Ka = σ crit (9)
cos(α1 + θ)sin(θ − φ)
Ka = ε⩽εint (14a)
tanα1 = γKa /Et1 (10) cosα1 sinθcos(θ + α1 − δ − φ)

4
K. Fan et al. Transportation Geotechnics 33 (2022) 100712

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