Abstract：A series of laboratory model tests were conducted to study the passive earth pressures with different limited widths of cohesionless soils against flexible retaining walls，such as cantilever piles. To simulate the forward flexure deformation mode of flexible retaining walls，such as cantilever piles，the homemade equipment model was applied in the tests. The failure characteristic and the passive earth pressure distribution were analyzed. The particle image velocimetry technique was employed to observe the development of a failure zone in the soils. The results show that the failure surface in the limited width soils behind the flexible retaining wall is a continuous and curved surface，which extend continuously to central wall body closing to or reaching passive state. Vertical soil arch appears between the sliding surface and the back of the wall，which compacts the soil at the bottom of the slip surface. With the increase of the lateral displacement，the passive earth pressures on the upper part of the moving retaining wall increase significantly and keep growing for finite soil. The pressures on the lower part of the wall increase and more easily achieve stability. With the increase of the soil width，the passive earth pressures increase and tend to be stable，reaching critical state or semi-infinite state. Moreover，the horizontal pressures distributed nonlinearly along the wall height，the passive earth pressures increase gradually and then rapidly decrease with the increase of the depth. The ratios of the backfill width is smaller，the peak value of passive earth pressure on the retaining wall is greater. And the peak value increase with the increase of the embedded depth of the wall，under the condition of the same aspect ratio.
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2019, Vol. 38 
