Evolution of shear localisation in earth pressure problems of a retaining wall

The paper deals with numerical investigations of the evolution of shear localisation in granular bodies for earth pressure problems of a retaining wall in conditions of plane strain. The passive and active failure of a retaining wall in sand is discussed. The calculations are carried out with a rigid and very rough retaining wall undergoing horizontal translation, rotation around the top and rotation around the bottom. The behaviour of dry sand is numerically modelled with a finite element method using a hypoplastic constitutive relation within a polar (Cosserat) continuum. The constitutive relation is obtained through extension by polar quantities, viz. rotations, curvatures and couple stresses, using the mean grain diameter as a characteristic length. During FE-calculations, the attention is laid on the influence of different wall movements on shear localisation. In addition, the effects of the initial void ratio, distribution of the initial void ratio and mean grain diameter, pressure level and size of the sand body and retaining wall is investigated in the case of a passive wall translation. The FE-results are compared with corresponding experimental results of laboratory model tests.