Active earth pressure against inclined rigid retaining wall considering rotation of principal stresses under translation mode

According to the static equilibrium of backfill element under the plane strain state, or the relationship of stresses on the vertical plane and wall-soil plane in the Mohr stress circle, the rotational angle of the principal stress at the wall is obtained considering wall-back inclination. According to the character which is that the shear force acting on the horizontal of differential level layer under translational mode is zero, a new formula of the failure angle of the inclined rigid retaining wall is put forward, considering the rotation of principal stresses and wall-back inclination. Furthermore, according to the static equilibrium of differential sliding backfill mass, new formulae of the active earth pressure against an inclined rigid retaining wall are derived. Influence analyses of parameters on active earth pressure illustrate that the wall-back inclination (its direction is anti-clockwise) are discussed. The comparisons of the proposed method with Coulomb and Chu methods show the merit of this study. This study can provide a more reasonable theoretical support for the design calculation of the active earth pressure against the inclined rigid retaining walls.