Computational limit analysis for anchors and retaining walls

Abstract

The computation of the bearing capacity of engineering structures commonly relays on results obtained for simple academic examples. Recent developments in computational limit analysis have allowed engineers to compute bounds of the bearing capacity of arbitrary geometries. We here extend these formulations to problems with practical interest such as retaining walls, anchors, or excavations with particular interface conditions. These situations require the special treatment of the contact conditions between different materials, or the modelling of joints and anchors. We demonstrate the potential of the resulting tool with some practical examples.