Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
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Full Length Article

A modified logarithmic spiral method for determining passive earth pressure

Shiyi Liu a, *, Yang Xia b, Li Liang a
a
School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, School of Automotive Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, a modified logarithmic spiral method is proposed to determine the passive earth pressure
Received 13 October 2017 and failure surface of cohesionless sloping backfill, with presence of wallesoil interface friction. The
Received in revised form proposed method is based on a limit equilibrium analysis wherein the assumed profile of the backfill
5 February 2018
failure surface is a composite of logarithmic spiral and its tangent. If the wallesoil interface is smooth, a
Accepted 6 February 2018
Available online 12 October 2018
straight line does not need to be assumed for the failure surface. The geometry of the failure surface is
determined using the Mohr circle analysis of the soil. The resultant passive earth thrust is computed
considering equilibrium of moments. The passive earth pressure coefficients are calculated with varied
Keywords:
Passive earth pressure
values of soil internal friction angle and cohesion, wall friction angle and inclination angle, and sloping
Logarithmic spiral method backfill angle. This method is verified with the finite element method (FEM) by comparing the horizontal
Finite element method (FEM) passive earth pressure and failure surface. The results agree well with other solutions, particularly with
Sloping backfill those obtained by the FEM. The implementation of the present method is efficient. The logarithmic spiral
Retaining wall theory is rigorous and self-explanatory for the geotechnical engineer.
Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Passive earth pressure plays an essential role in design of
geotechnical engineering structures such as retaining walls, anti-
sliding piles and bridge abutments. Different approaches, e.g. limit
equilibrium methods such as the Coulomb (1776) and Rankine
(1857) theories, as well as limit analysis and numerical analysis,
have been proposed to calculate the passive earth pressure. The
Rankine and Coulomb theories still serve at present as the funda-
mentals of this subject (Terzaghi et al., 1996; Budhu, 2010; Braja and
Khaled, 2014). The Rankine (1857) theory assumes that the resultant
force is angled parallel to the backfill surface. Once the backfill sur-
face is horizontal, the assumption indicates that the wallesoil
interface should be smooth (i.e. the wall friction angle equal to zero).
Such an assumption is not adopted in the Coulomb (1776) theory,
because Coulomb’s equation of passive earth pressure has been
extended to account for wall friction. However, the planar failure
surface assumption in the Coulomb theory may not be suitable in the
case of a larger wall friction angle as it could overestimate the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liu-shiyi@hotmail.com (S. Liu).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
passive earth pressure. Despite these drawbacks, the theory has
been widely used and accepted by engineers due to its simplicity.
Terzaghi (1943) noted that the failure surface should be curved if
the wallesoil interface is rough (i.e. the wall friction angle is larger
than zero). For this, he proposed a method known as the loga-
rithmic spiral method, which is one of the earliest methods used to
describe the passive limit equilibrium of a sliding mass moving
along a curved failure surface. After that, a composite failure surface
comprising a logarithmic spiral and its tangent was adopted in
different limit equilibrium methods (Shields and Tolunay, 1972;
Zhu and Qian, 2000; Kumar, 2001; Rao and Choudhury, 2005;
Shamsabadi et al., 2013; Patki et al., 2015a). The logarithmic spiral
failure mechanism (i.e. the failure surface of merely a logarithmic
spiral) can be studied using the limit equilibrium method (Patki
et al., 2015b) and kinematical method (Soubra and Macuh, 2002).
The slip-line field theory, a powerful mathematical technique,
can be used to solve plane strain boundary value problems in
plasticity domain. This theory provides exact solutions to rigid
plastic solids (Bower, 2010). The slip-line method (the method of
characteristics) (Sokolovskii, 1965; Kumar and Chitikela, 2002;
Cheng, 2003) does not need to assume the shape of failure sur-
face; however, it is helpful for understanding the behaviour of a
soilewall system and the failure mechanism. But in practice, it is
difficult to solve a particular problem using this method as finding
out the slip-line field is rather difficult.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2018.03.011
1674-7755 Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1172 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182

Fig. 1. Logarithmic spiral method for determining the passive earth pressure (Terzaghi, 1943; Terzaghi et al., 1996). (a) Model of a gravity wall retaining horizontal backfill under
vertical surcharge loading; (b) Free body that is divided into the logarithmic spiral zone and the Rankine zone; (c) Forces for computation of component due to the weight of soil,
while neglecting the cohesion and surcharge loading; (d) Forces for computation of component due to the vertical surcharge loading, while neglecting the weight of soil and
cohesion; (e) Forces for computation of component due to the cohesion, while neglecting the weight of soil and surcharge loading; (f) Lateral forces acting on the Rankine zone; (g)
Vertical surcharge Q; and (h) Diagram illustrating computation of the moment due to cohesion.

Limit analysis, which is based on the upper and lower bound
theorems of classical plasticity, is another common method used to
determine passive earth pressures. It is easy to obtain the upper
limit of passive earth pressures with upper bound solution (Chen,
1975; Soubra and Regenass, 2000; Soubra and Macuh, 2002;
Antão et al., 2011). However, it is difficult to construct statically
admissible stress fields in the lower bound analysis (Shiau et al.,
2008). To overcome this difficulty, the finite element limit anal-
ysis is proposed (Sloan, 2013).
Finite element analysis is a popular tool used to evaluate
geotechnical structure stability, e.g. slope engineering (Griffiths and
Lane, 1999; Liu et al., 2015). The finite element method (FEM) has
been widely used for calculation of passive earth pressures (e.g.
Tejchman et al., 2007; Hanna et al., 2011; Hanna and Diab, 2017).
Under certain conditions (e.g. wallesoil contact), the finite element
analysis is more efficient and can yield more reasonable result with
respect to slope failure mechanism.
Terzaghi (1943) developed the logarithmic spiral method; un-
fortunately, few studies have been reported on this method. This is
likely due to the implementation difficulty. Based on the logarith-
mic spiral method developed by Terzaghi, we proposed a modified
method for calculations of passive earth pressures and failure sur-
faces. In the modified method, the shape of the failure surface for a
smooth wall is not assumed as a straight line. The modified method
can determine the passive earth pressure and failure surface of a
cohesionless sloping backfill. The passive earth pressure co-
efficients are evaluated for various values of soil friction angle 4,
soil cohesion c, wall friction angle d, sloping backfill angle b and
wall inclination angle l, and then they are compared with existing
results. Then, the feasibility of the method is verified by the FEM.
 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182 1173

Fig. 2. Mohr circle analysis for determining the Rankine zone. (a) Stresses of an element in a sloping backfill and the failure pattern; and (b) Passive stress analysis of soil.

2. Formulation of logarithmic spiral method The body force of soil abgf is used to conduct the moment equi-
librium analysis, and the following forces act on abgf: three forces P1,
2.1. Principle P2 and P3; soil weight W; resultant force Q induced by the vertical
surcharge loading q; the moment Mc induced by the cohesion along
It is assumed that the soil satisfies the MohreCoulomb failure bg; the components PRW, PRQ, and PRC of the resultant thrust of the
criterion, which is expressed as follows: Rankine passive earth pressure, which are angled parallel to the
backfill surface; and the resultant F1 and F2 of the normal and fric-
s ¼ s tan 4 þ c (1) tional stresses along bg (Terzaghi, 1943; Terzaghi et al., 1996).
Because the moments induced by F1 and F2 at pole O are zero, the
where s and s are the shear stress and normal stress on the failure equations of the moment equilibrium can be expressed as:
surface, respectively; and c and 4 are the cohesion and internal
 9
friction angle, respectively. In the logarithmic spiral method, the P1 yf L1 ¼ WLW þ PRW LRW >>
>

 =
internal friction angle 4 of soils (not the cohesion c) governs the
P2 yf L2 ¼ Q LQ þ PRQ LRQ (3)
shapes of the failure surface and the spiral.
 >
>
>
;
Fig. 1 illustrates the passive earth pressure problem of retaining P3 yf L3 ¼ Mc þ PRC LRC
wall, which can be solved using the logarithmic spiral method
(Terzaghi, 1943; Terzaghi et al., 1996). Moment equilibrium conditions where yf is the y-coordinate of the point f. The x-coordinate xf can
are employed to calculate the magnitude of passive thrust. It is be written as xf ¼ yf tan a2.
assumed that the failure surface comprises a logarithmic spiral and a The moment Mc of the total cohesion along bg (Terzaghi et al.,
tangent surface. The resultant passive earth pressure Pp is decom- 1996) is calculated as follows:
posed into three components: P1, P2 and P3. Each of these forces acts at
an angle d (the wall friction angle), normal to the contact face ab. P1 Zq Zq Zq

maintains force equilibrium due to the weight of the mass abgf and the c
Mc ¼ dMc ¼ rcds cos 4 ¼ r 2 c dq ¼ r12  r02
friction, P2 maintains force equilibrium due to the vertical surcharge 2 tan 4
0 0 0
load acting on the horizontal backfill surface and the friction, and P3
maintains force equilibrium with the cohesion on the sliding surface. (4)
The soil within the triangle age is in the passive Rankine state. The resultant passive earth pressure Pp can be defined as follows:
The failure surface bge comprises a logarithmic spiral part bg and a h


i
straight part ge (Terzaghi, 1943; Terzaghi et al., 1996). In polar co- Pp ¼ min P1 yf þ P2 yf þ P3 yf (5)
ordinates (r, q), the logarithmic spiral part is determined by
It is noted that the failure surface corresponds to the resultant
r1 ¼ r0 eq tan 4 (2) force Pp as determination of the passive earth pressure using the
logarithmic spiral method becomes an optimization problem. Pp is
where e is the base of natural logarithm, and r0 and 4 are the the objective function and yf is the design variable (Terzaghi, 1943;
random positive real constants (4 is also the soil internal friction Terzaghi et al., 1996). It is important that the defined domain of yf
angle). For the logarithmic spiral, the angle 4 is constant between should be specified by the user with experiences to a reasonable
the line perpendicular to tangent direction and the radial line at the range. In this paper, yf is an arithmetic progression and the common
point (r, q). This indicates that as the size of the spiral increases, its difference in the successive members is selected as small as possible.
shape will not be altered upon each successive curve. The straight
part ge of the failure surface is tangent to the spiral bg at the point g, 2.2. Logarithmic spiral failure surface
and thus the pole of the spiral must be located on the ray ga. Note
that the location of the pole is different from that assumed by The logarithmic spiral cannot be described based on the concept
Terzaghi et al. (1996), who suggested that the pole is located on line of the logarithmic spiral method proposed by Terzaghi (1943) and
ag. Assumption of a different location of pole would yield a Terzaghi et al. (1996). An approximate method is proposed herein
considerable difference in the calculation results. to determine the shape and location of the logarithmic spiral.
1174 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182

Fig. 3. Modified logarithmic spiral method for determining passive earth pressure in the case of inclined cohesionless backfill. (a) Model of gravity wall retaining a sloping backfill
under vertical surcharge loading; (b) Free body divided into the logarithmic spiral zone and Rankine zone; (c) Forces entering into computation of component due to the weight of
soil, neglecting the vertical surcharge loading; (d) Forces entering into computation of component due to the vertical surcharge loading neglecting the weight of soil; (e) Lateral
forces acting on the Rankine zone; and (f) Vertical surcharge Q.

Fig. 4. A finite element grid for the passive earth pressure analysis. Materials of the foundation and backfill are the same.

As shown in Fig. 1c, d and e, in the Cartesian coordinate system where q is the corresponding angle of the logarithmic spiral bg (see
xay, the coordinates of points a and b are considered as variables. Fig. 1c). The logarithmic spiral bg can be described by function q(yf).
The y-coordinate of point f is the same as that of the point g. xO Eq. (7) can be solved with root-finding algorithms using the
represents the x-coordinate of the pole O, and the y-coordinate of bisection method. This solution is implemented by a proposed
the pole O is obtained by the following equation: numerical code implemented in MATLAB.
yO ¼ tanðp=4 þ 4=2ÞxO (6)
2.3. Passive Rankine zone
For a given value of the y-coordinate of point f (i.e. yf), xO can be
As shown in Fig. 1b and f, the shape of the triangular Rankine
obtained by solving the following equations:
zone can be determined by the angles a1 and a2. In the case of a
) horizontal backfill surface (b ¼ 0 ), these two angles would be the
Og ¼ Obexpð
h
q tan 4Þ .
i same, i.e. a1 ¼ a2 ¼ p/4  4/2.
2 2 2 (7)
q ¼ arccos Og þ Ob  bg 2Og Od In general, in the case of b s 0 , the angles a1 and a2 are
determined with the Mohr circle analysis. As shown in Fig. 2a, the
 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182 1175

vertical stress sv of the soil element abcd at a depth of z is obtained Eq. (9) can also be expressed as follows:
by the following equation:
c cos 4 þ OIcos b sin 4
sinð:OOc IÞ þ sin 4 cosð:OOc IÞ  1 ¼ 0
sv ¼ ðgz þ qÞcos b (8) OIsin b
(10)
where g is the weight of soils, and q is the vertical surcharge
loading. In the analysis of Mohr circle for a two-dimensional The solution to Eq. (10) is given:
state of stress (Fig. 2b), it is assumed that the length of line OI 
is equal to the vertical stress of the soil element abcd, i.e. OI ¼ FðzÞ ðcs0Þ
:OOc I ¼ (11)
sv . We can draw a parallel line from point I to the sv plane of constant ðc ¼ 0Þ
stress acting; alternatively, a parallel line from point M to the sh
plane of action can be plotted. The intersection of any two lines where F is a function of the height z. The angles a1 and a2 are
with the Mohr circle is the pole N. The angle between OI and the expressed as follows:
x-axis is the same as the sloping backfill angle b. According to the 
geometric figure, :OOcI can be solved by the following equa- 2a1 ¼ p=2  4 þ :OOc I
(12)
tions: 2a2 ¼ p=2  4  :OOc I

 h i 9
=
Oc K ¼ DO þ OA þ AOc sin 4 ¼ c cot 4 þ OIcos b þ Oc Icosð:OOc IÞ sin 4
(9)
Oc Ksin 4 ¼ Oc Isin 4 ¼ OIsin b ;

Fig. 6. Results of the passive earth pressure and failure surfaces obtained by the log-
arithmic spiral method for 4 ¼ 40 .

Table 1
Results comparison (4 ¼ 40 ).

d/4 Kp ¼ 2Pp/(gH2) ¼ 2Pp,h/(gH2 cos d)

Coulomb Soubra Patki et al. Shiau et al. Logarithmic spiral method
theory and (2015b) (2008),
Duncan This study
Macuh LB (UB)
and
(2002)
Mokwa
(2001)

0 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 (4.61) 4.6 4.6

1/3 8.15 7.62 7.62 6.87 (7.79) 8.17 7.58
1/2 11.77 9.81 9.82 8.79 (10.03) 10.5 9.67
Fig. 5. Results of (a) the horizontal passive earth pressure coefficient and (b) failure 2/3 18.72 12.6 12.6 11.3 (12.87) 13.08 12.24
surface (contours of displacement after time step ¼ 3) using the finite element method. 1 92.72 20.01 20.01 18.64 (20.1) 17.5 18.86
The solid black line (i.e. the failure surface) obtained with the logarithmic spiral method is
used for the comparison with the contours from the finite element method. Note: LB and UB are the lower and upper bounds, respectively.
1176 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182

Table 2
Comparison of the results obtained by the numerical limit analysis and the logarithmic spiral method.

4 ( ) Kp ¼ 2Pp/(gH2) ¼ 2Pp,h/(gH2 cos d)

Limit analysis LB (UB) (Shiau et al. (2008)) Logarithmic spiral method

d/4 ¼ 0 d/4 ¼ 1/3 d/4 ¼ 1/2 d/4 ¼ 2/3 d/4 ¼ 1 d/4 ¼ 0 d/4 ¼ 1/3 d/4 ¼ 1/2 d/4 ¼ 2/3 d/4 ¼ 1
20 2.04 (2.05) 2.32 (2.42) 2.5 (2.62) 2.67 (2.82) 3.02 (3.21) 2.04 2.38 2.56 2.73 3.07
25 2.46 (2.48) 2.93 (3.11) 3.26 (3.48) 3.59 (3.86) 4.33 (4.7) 2.46 3.06 3.39 3.72 4.42
30 3 (3.01) 3.78 (4.1) 4.37 (4.76) 5.02 (5.49) 6.58 (7.14) 3 4.02 4.61 5.26 6.68
35 3.7 (3.72) 5 (5.58) 6.08 (6.77) 7.32 (8.17) 10.99 (11.5) 3.69 5.42 6.52 7.78 10.76
40 4.6 (4.62) 6.87 (7.79) 8.79 (10.03) 11.3 (12.87) 18.64 (20.1) 4.6 7.58 9.67 12.24 18.86
45 5.82 (5.86) 9.69 (11.41) 13.42 (15.85) 19.08 (22.03) 38.52 (45.14) 5.83 11.1 15.3 20.88 36.95

However, Eqs. (11) and (12) show that the angles a1 and a2 vary 3. Finite element modelling
with depth when c s 0 and b s 0 . This indicates that the loga-
rithmic spiral method cannot effectively address the problem of A backfill is assumed with a height H ¼ 5 m that is retained by a
cohesive sloping backfill. Thus future study is needed. rigid gravity wall. The materials of the foundation and backfill are
As shown in Fig. 2b, in the case of cohesionless sloping backfill, the same, which is shown in Fig. 4. A 45 edge cut is introduced to
c ¼ 0, the angle :OOcI can be expressed as follows: benefit the numerical solution (Shiau and Smith, 2006). The elas-
toplastic finite element analysis for determining the passive earth
9 pressure is achieved using ABAQUS (Smith, 2010). The CPE4R
:OOc I ¼ p  :OIOc  b >
>
>
> element (i.e. a 4-node bilinear plane strain quadrilateral, reduced
>
OOc OOc sin b >
>
= integration element) is adopted to discretize the finite element
sinð:OIOc Þ ¼ sin b ¼ sin b ¼
Oc I Oc K sin 4 (13) model. Passive failure is induced by pushing the rigid retaining wall
  >
>
>
> into the soil backfill. The bottom edge of the foundation is fixed. The
sin b >
>
:OIOc ¼ p  arcsin >
; right- and left-hand edges of the foundation and the right-hand
sin 4
edge of the backfill are fixed in the horizontal direction. Vertical
Substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (12) yields movement of the wall is not allowed. A displacement is applied to
the right of the nodes at the left edge of the gravity wall.
  9 The retaining wall is assumed to be linearly elastic with Young’s
1 p 4
sin b b>
a1 ¼ 
þ arcsin  >> modulus of 20.3 GPa, Poisson’s ratio of 0.2 and density of 2500 kg/m3.
4 2 2 sin 4 2= The backfill and foundation are assumed to be elastic-perfectly plastic.
  (14)
p 4 1 sin b b>> The elastic response of the soil is assumed to be linear and isotropic,
a2 ¼   arcsin þ >;
with Young’s modulus of 182 MPa, Poisson’s ratio of 0.3 and density of
4 2 2 sin 4 2
2040.8 kg/m3. The soil backfill follows MohreCoulomb behaviour
The Rankine passive earth pressure coefficient KpR (Rankine, with associated flow rule. The linear DruckerePrager yield criterion is
1857) is expressed as follows: adopted for simulation of the soil backfill in the numerical analysis
due to its smooth yield surface. The constitutive model parameters can
 1=2
cos b þ cos2 b  cos2 4 be matched to provide the same flow and failure response in the plane
KpR ¼  1=2 (15) strain condition (Helwany, 2007; Smith, 2010). The following re-
cos b  cos2 b  cos2 4 lationships provide a match between the MohreCoulomb and linear
Fig. 3 provides the solution for determining the passive earth DruckerePrager material parameters in the plane strain condition:
pressure with the modified logarithmic spiral method in the case of qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 ffi 9
inclined cohesionless backfill. tan b3 9  tan2 j > >
sin 4 ¼ >
>
9  tan b tan j >
=
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 (16)
 >
>
3 9  tan2 j >
>
>
;
c cos 4 ¼ d
9  tan b tan j

where d is the intercept of the linear yield surface, and j is the

dilation angle in the p-q stress plane (p is the equivalent stress and q
is the Mises equivalent stress). Considering the case of associated
flow, j ¼ b, we obtain

3 sin 4 3 cos 4
tan b ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi; d ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi c (17)
2
3 þ sin 4 3 þ sin2 4

An example is given to show the finite element solution for

Fig. 7. Comparison of the results obtained by the numerical limit analysis and loga-
rithmic spiral method. LB and UB represent the lower and upper bounds, respectively.
determination of the passive earth pressure. Fig. 5a shows the
relationship of the horizontal passive earth pressure coefficient Kp,h
with the time step of the finite element analysis for the case of
4 ¼ 40 and d/4 ¼ 1/2. The asymptotic limiting value corresponds to
the maximum Kp,h that could be mobilized. Fig. 5b shows the
variation in the contour of displacement with time step. The solid
 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182
(a) c = q = 0 kPa.
Fig. 8. Comparison of horizontal passive earth pressure distributions on smooth and rough walls for various values of 4.
black lines are the slip surface obtained by the logarithmic spiral
method. The results show that the failure surfaces obtained with
the two methods are the same after the 3rd time step.
4. Results and discussion
The passive earth pressure and failure surface of a rigid retaining
wall were obtained by the modified logarithmic spiral method
under a wide range of variables, e.g. variations in geometry, walle
soil interface and soil backfill properties. The results are compared
with existing results and that of the FEM.
4.1. Typical results
Fig. 6 shows the magnitudes of the passive thrust and critical
failure surfaces obtained with the logarithmic spiral method at
4 ¼ 40 with varied wall friction angle. The basic assumption with
1177
(b) c = q =10 kPa.
respect to the failure surface is that the shape of the failure surface
is convex. For the smooth wall, the radian of the failure surface
below the spiral zone (i.e. the region above the logarithmic spiral
curve) is approximately p and the coordinate of the pole of the
spiral failure surface is approximately (N, þN). Therefore, the
failure surface of the spiral zone is roughly a straight line.
The Kp values obtained by the logarithmic spiral method are
reported in Table 1, in comparison with the results from other
methods. For rough walls (d/4 s 0), the logarithmic spiral method
by Duncan and Mokwa (2001) predicted higher values of Kp than
our results, except for the fully rough case (d/4 ¼ 1). The numerical
upper and lower bounds obtained by Shiau et al. (2008) are close to
our results and the results of Soubra and Macuh (2002) and Patki
et al. (2015b); however, our results are the lowest.
More generally, analyses are performed for various values of soil
internal friction angle 4. A comparison between the results ob-
tained by the numerical limit analysis (Shiau et al., 2008) and the
1178 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182

Fig. 9. Comparison of failure surfaces obtained by the finite element method (contour of displacement) and logarithmic spiral method (solid black line) for various values of 4.

logarithmic spiral method is presented in Table 2 and Fig. 7. The
numerical upper and lower bounds match our results, except for
the fully rough case (d/4 ¼ 1) with 4 > 30 , where Kp values are
closed to and even smaller than the lower bound. The reason ac-
counting for this discrepancy in the fully rough case (d/4 ¼ 1) with
4 > 30 remains unclear; however, verification with the FEM result
might be an alternative to provide insight into the accuracy of the
logarithmic spiral method.
Figs. 8a and 9a show the results obtained by the modified loga-
rithmic spiral method and FEM for the cohesionless backfill at
various values of 4. In Fig. 8a, the distributions of the earth pressure
in the middle of the walls, obtained using the two methods, are
basically the same. Difference between the boundary nodes near the
top and bottom of the wall may be caused by the stress concentration
and the horizontal direction being fixed on the left edge of the
foundation in the finite element analyses. As shown in Fig. 9a, the

Table 3
Comparison of proposed Kpg, Kpq and Kpc values with the results from Soubra and Macuh (2002).

Method 4 ( ) Kpg Kpq Kpc

d/4 ¼ 0 d/4 ¼ 1/3 d/4 ¼ 1/2 d/4 ¼ 2/3 d/4 ¼ 1 d/4 ¼ 0 d/4 ¼ 1/3 d/4 ¼ 1/2 d/4 ¼ 2/3 d/4 ¼ 1 d/4 ¼ 0 d/4 ¼ 1/3 d/4 ¼ 1/2 d/4 ¼ 2/3 d/4 ¼ 1
Soubra and 20 2.04 2.39 2.57 2.75 3.13 2.04 2.38 2.54 2.7 3 2.86 3.76 4.18 4.59 5.31
Macuh 25 2.46 3.07 3.41 3.76 4.54 2.46 3.04 3.34 3.65 4.24 3.14 4.36 4.98 5.58 6.74
(2002) 30 3 4.03 4.65 5.34 6.93 3 3.98 4.53 5.1 6.28 3.46 5.14 6.05 6.99 8.88
35 3.69 5.44 6.59 7.95 11.3 3.69 5.35 6.34 7.42 9.82 3.84 6.18 7.55 9.05 12.28
40 4.6 7.62 9.81 12.6 20.01 4.6 7.42 9.27 11.4 16.43 4.29 7.62 9.77 12.26 18.02
Logarithmic 20 2.04 2.38 2.56 2.73 3.07 2.04 2.38 2.54 2.68 2.87 2.86 3.38 3.68 4 4.64
spiral 25 2.46 3.06 3.39 3.72 4.42 2.46 3.05 3.35 3.61 4 3.14 4 4.46 4.97 5.98
method 30 3 4.02 4.61 5.26 6.68 3 4 4.53 5.03 5.8 3.46 4.73 5.51 6.33 7.89
35 3.69 5.42 6.52 7.78 10.76 3.69 5.38 6.35 7.3 8.85 3.84 5.76 7 8.33 10.79
40 4.6 7.58 9.67 12.24 18.86 4.6 7.5 9.31 11.15 14.39 4.29 7.2 9.22 11.41 15.53
 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182 1179

UB
LB
Log Spiral

Kp,h
β (°)
Fig. 11. Comparison of the horizontal passive earth pressure coefficient with the re-
sults obtained by finite element limit analysis (Shiau et al., 2008).

calculated with the assumption of cohesionless soil without sur-

charge loading. The computation of the coefficients Kpq and Kpc is
based on the assumption of weightless soil with c ¼ 0 kPa for Kpq
Fig. 10. Comparisons of failure surface and passive earth pressure obtained by the and q ¼ 0 kPa for Kpc (Soubra and Macuh, 2002). Based on the
logarithmic spiral method for c ¼ q ¼ 0 kPa and c ¼ q ¼ 10 kPa (4 ¼ d ¼ 40 ). definitions of Kpg, Kpq and Kpc, Table 3 compares our results with
those obtained by Soubra and Macuh (2002). Our results are close
failure surfaces of the two methods are essentially the same (i.e. the to or less than the results from Soubra and Macuh (2002), sug-
shapes and locations of the failure surfaces are in good agreement). gesting that the results are the upper bound obtained from the
kinematical approach (Soubra and Macuh, 2002) and different as-
sumptions of failure mechanism are adopted.
4.2. Effect of cohesion The passive force calculated by Eq. (19) would be less than or
equal to the true value. In other words, the passive earth pressure
For the cohesive backfill retained by a vertical wall and loaded coefficients are not constant in the case of cohesive backfills under
by vertical surcharge loading, the passive force is expressed as vertical surcharge loading. In the logarithmic spiral method, the
follows: passive earth pressure coefficients Kpglog ; Kpqlog and Kpclog are
expressed as follows:
gH 2
Pp ¼ Kpg þ Kpq qH þ Kpc cH (18) . 9
2
Kpglog ¼ 2P1 ðH2 gÞ >
=
where Kpg, Kpq and Kpc are the passive earth pressure coefficients Kpqlog ¼ P2 =ðHqÞ (19)
>
;
and represent the effects of soil weight, vertical surcharge loading Kpclog ¼ P3 =ðHcÞ
and cohesion, respectively (Soubra and Macuh, 2002). Kpg is
where P1þP2þP3 ¼ P. Table 4 shows the passive earth pressure
Table 4 coefficients Kpglog ; Kpqlog and Kpclog obtained by the logarithmic
Passive earth pressure coefficients Kpg-log, Kpq-log and Kpc-log when 4 ¼ d ¼ 40 . spiral method when 4 ¼ d ¼ 40 with various g, c and q values. The
Wall Unit Vertical Cohesion, Kpg-log Kpq-log Kpc-log coefficients Kpq and Kpc based on the assumption of a weightless
height, weight, surcharge c (kPa)
H (m) g (kN/m3) loading,
q (kPa)

>0 >0 0 0 18.86 e e

5 20 0* 10 18.9 15.9 16.56
5 5 18.91 15.86 16.52
10 0* 18.91 15.86 16.52
5 20 0* 20 18.98 15.59 16.3
Height (m)

5 15 18.98 15.59 16.3

10 10 18.98 15.59 16.3
15 5 19 15.52 16.24
20 0* 19 15.52 16.24
5 20 0* 30 19.05 15.42 16.16
5 25 19.05 15.42 16.16
10 20 19.08 15.36 16.11
15 15 19.08 15.36 16.11
20 10 19.08 15.36 16.11
25 5 19.11 15.3 16.06
30 105 19.11 15.3 16.06
5 20 200 100 19.67 14.77 15.67
>0 0 >0 0 e 14.39 e
Horizontal earth pressure (MPa)
0 >0 e e 15.53
Fig. 12. Comparison of horizontal passive earth pressure distributions for various
Note: 0* ¼ 0.00001. values of b (4 ¼ 30.9 , and d ¼ 19.2 ).
1180 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182
Fig. 13. Comparison of the failure surfaces obtained by the finite element method (contour of displacement) and the logarithmic spiral method (solid black line) for various values of
b (4 ¼ 30.9 , and d ¼ 19.2 ).
soil with c ¼ 0 for Kpq and q ¼ 0 for Kpc, and Kpg calculated with
assumption of cohesionless soil without surcharge loading are the
minimum values of Kpg-log, Kpq-log and Kpc-log.
Figs. 8b and 9b show the results obtained by the logarithmic
spiral method and FEM for cohesive backfills under vertical sur-
charge loading with various values of 4. Similarly, the same dis-
tribution of earth pressure is observed in the middle of the wall. The
failure surfaces obtained by the two methods are essentially the
same. Furthermore, considering the effects of cohesion and sur-
charge loading, the critical failure surface is deeper, and the
magnitude of the passive thrust is larger than that without
consideration of the effects of cohesion and surcharge loading
(Fig. 10).
4.3. Effect of backfill slope
This example is taken from the work of Shiau et al. (2008)
(4 ¼ 30.9 , d ¼ 19.2 , l ¼ 0, c ¼ q ¼ 0) to examine the feasi-
bility of the logarithmic spiral method with various values of
the backfill slope angle b. Fig. 11 shows the comparison of
horizontal passive earth pressure coefficients obtained by nu-
merical limit analysis and the logarithmic spiral method. The
upper and lower bounds are close to the results of the loga-
rithmic spiral method with the angle b increasing from 10 to
20 . In addition, the horizontal passive earth pressure co-
efficients when b ¼ 20 and b ¼ 15 are proposed using the
logarithmic spiral method.
Figs. 12 and 13 show the results of the horizontal passive earth
pressure distributions and failure surfaces based on the logarithmic
spiral method and FEM using various values of b, respectively. In
Fig. 12, the same distribution of earth pressures is observed in the
middle of the walls except when b ¼ 20 , where a slight difference
is observed. As shown in Fig. 13, the failure surfaces based on the
two methods are essentially the same (i.e. the shapes and locations
of the failure surfaces agree well). The failure surface changes from
plane (b ¼ 20 ) to curved (b ¼ 15 to 20 ) and the size of the
ground surface of the passive sliding body reduces when the angle
is increased from 20 to 20 .
 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182 1181

Fig. 14. Forces used in computation of component due to weight of soil and friction for
the concave failure mechanism (Kumar, 2001).

Fig. 16. Comparison of horizontal passive earth pressure distributions for various
values of l (4 ¼ 30 ).

4.4. Effect of wall inclination

Kumar (2001) studied the effect of wall inclination on passive

Fig. 15. Comparisons of failure surface and passive earth pressure obtained by the
logarithmic spiral method for convex and concave failure mechanisms (4 ¼ 30 ,
d/4 ¼ 0, and l ¼ 30 ).
earth pressure coefficients for cohesionless soil and proposed a
concave failure mechanism (see Fig. 14). When 4 ¼ 30 , d/4 ¼ 0, and
l ¼ 30 , Fig. 15 shows the comparisons of critical failure surface and
magnitude of passive thrust accounting for both convex and
concave failure mechanisms. The failure surface corresponding to
the minimum magnitude of the passive thrust is concave. A com-
parison of the passive earth pressure coefficients with those ob-
tained by other methods is shown in Table 5. The results obtained
by the logarithmic spiral method are greater than those obtained by
Kumar and Chitikela (2002) and less than those from the limit
equilibrium method by Patki et al. (2015a). In addition, for the case
of smooth walls (d/4 ¼ 0), the failure surfaces are concave for both
l ¼ 30 and l ¼ 15 .
The FEM is used to verify the assumption of a concave failure
mechanism. Taking 4 ¼ 30 as an example, Figs. 16 and 17 indicate

Table 5
Comparison of proposed Kp values with those obtained by other methods for in-
clined retaining wall with horizontal cohesionless backfill.

4 ( ) d/4 l ( ) Kp Logarithmic spiral method

Patki et al. Kumar and Kp Failure surface

(2015a) Chitikela
(2002)

30 0 30 2.05 1.91 2.06 Concave

15 2.72 2.3 2.34 Concave
15 5.53 4.29 4.3 Convex
30 8.83 7.04 7.05 Convex
30 1 30 3.91 3.72 3.74 Convex
15 5.18 4.69 4.73 Convex
15 12.26 10.24 10.56 Convex
30 22.22 18.19 19.07 Convex
40 0 30 2.45 2.22 2.52 Concave
15 3.68 3.07 3.17 Concave
15 9.44 7.66 7.68 Convex
30 17.2 15.04 15.14 Convex
40 1 30 7.719 7.22 7.28 Convex
15 12.15 10.8 11.01 Convex
15 42.84 34.59 36.75 Convex
30 98.23 75.75 82.7 Convex Fig. 17. Comparison of failure surfaces obtained by the finite element method (contour
of displacement) and the logarithmic spiral method (solid black line) for various values
of l (4 ¼ 30 ).
1182 S. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1171e1182
the distribution of horizontal passive earth pressure and failure
surface for l ¼ 30 , d/4 ¼ 0 and 1, respectively. The failure surfaces
obtained by the two methods agree with each other, except when
l ¼ 30 and d/4 ¼ 0. In Fig. 17, the concave failure mechanism is
unreasonable, and the corresponding horizontal passive earth
pressure distribution is not a graded distribution, as shown in
Fig. 16. However, the corresponding passive earth pressure coeffi-
cient is generally accurate for practical design.
5. Conclusions
A modified logarithmic spiral method is proposed to determine
the passive earth pressure coefficients and failure surfaces. The
passive earth pressure coefficients are calculated at various values
of soil internal friction angle and cohesion, wall friction angle and
inclination angle, and sloping backfill angle. Then, these co-
efficients are compared with the existing results. Finally, the
method is verified with the FEM with respect to the horizontal
passive earth pressure and failure surface. The main conclusions are
drawn as follows:
(1) The logarithmic spiral method developed by Terzaghi et al.
(1996) is modified in this context. It is demonstrated that
the modified method is efficient, which can be used to
determine the passive earth pressure and failure surface of a
cohesionless sloping backfill.
(2) The results obtained from our modified method agree well
with other solutions, in particular those obtained by the FEM.
(3) The logarithmic spiral theory is rigorous and self-
explanatory for the geotechnical engineer.
The modified logarithmic spiral method presented in this study
still has some limitations. One major problem is that it cannot be
used to accurately solve problems involving cohesive sloping
backfill, which needs future studies.
Conflicts of interest
The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of
interest associated with this publication and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influ-
enced its outcome.
Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the Doctoral Scientific Research Foun-
dation of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 20170520341) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.
N170103015). These supports are gratefully acknowledged.
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Dr. Shiyi Liu is presently working as a lecturer in North-
eastern University, Shenyang, China. He obtained his PhD
degree from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian,
China. His main research interests are in the areas of sta-
bility analysis of heterogeneous soil/rock slopes and
anisotropy of soil/rock. He has published research papers
in international and national journals. He is a member of
Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
(CSTAM).