Assessment of Lateral Pressure on the Retaining Walls due to Rammer and Vibratory Compaction

Compaction is one of the most common procedures to improve soil strength parameters. If this process is carried out adjacent to a retaining wall, the lateral pressure applied to the wall increases. The purpose of this research is to measure the lateral pressure on the rigid retaining wall because of the compaction of dry sandy soil by vibrating plate compactor or rammer compactor. In order to scrutinize this matter, the FLAC software has been employed for modeling. Subsequently, the numerical outcomes are verified with laboratory results. Afterward, the influence of diverse parameters on the lateral pressure is studied. According to investigations, increasing the loading amplitude, decreasing the compactor's dimensions, and lessening the compactor's distance from the wall are among the parameters that positively affect the increase of the lateral pressure, while increasing the internal friction angle diminishes the lateral pressure. Moreover, the results reveal that the frequency in the vibration method and the blows numbers in the rammer method have a low effect on lateral pressure.

Keywords:

Retaining wall , Vibratory compactor , Rammer compactor , Lateral pressure , FLAC software