Abstract: Based on the Coulomb's Earth Pressure theory, the total forces, stress distribution, and the location of the concentrated force acting on a retaining wall with preexisted segmental linear slip surfaces are estimated by using differential element method on the parallel slip surface. This approach also improves the active earth pressure estimation method of single linear slip surface that defined in the current code. The results indicate that, under segmental linear slip cracks, change of the location of the corner of slip lines and the angle between lines will result in an increase of the active pressures. When the segmental linear slip surface becomes a single slip line, the earth pressure is the same as the value defined in the current design code.

Key words: Retaining Walls, Active Earth Pressures, Slip Surface Slip Surface, Differential Element Method