Hamid Lajevardi - Department of Technical and Engineering, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
Majid Khanjani - Department of Technical and Engineering, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran

As you may already know, a major topic in retaining walls science is the analysis of earth pressure on the retaining wall which is a basic principle of retaining wall design. On the other hand, the cyclic and dynamic loads on the earth surface and on retaining walls, specially in urban development, is particularly important. So, we set out in this article to conduct a comparison and numerical analysis of active and passive earth pressures on retaining walls under cyclic loads. In this article, the numerical analysis was carried out using FLAC2D software and also by laboratory results obtained from retaining walls tests. To verify the authenticity of procedure, the numerical model results were compared against laboratory model results in two categories. The results showed that based on passive and active pressure conditions, by moving the effective load point away from the wall, the pressure on the wall is reduced for sure; and by changing the load distance, pressure will be distributed accordingly. Another important result is the difficulty of pinpointing the location where the earth pressure changes from passive to active phase, so it is only possible to define a margin for this conversion zone. Generally, pressure caused by cyclic load is a function of magnitude, distance, frequency, and number of loading cycles.

cyclic loads, FLAC2D program, retaining walls, numerical study, active/passive earth pressure