Rankine earth pressure theory considering microstructure of porous materials

Soil as an engineering material has very complex properties, such as non-continuous, non-uniformity and nonlinear mechanical. In a certain extent, macroscopic properties of soil are affected by the changes of the microstructure. And microscopic porosity of soft clay and its influencing factors, the relationship between macro and micro porosity, the average contact area rate and its influencing factors are studied. Some mechanics problems were analyzed by using the relationship between macro-porosity and the average contact area rate. Combining soil lateral stress transfer principle, a calculation theory of earth pressure considering soil contact area was got. The possible reason of the differences between earth pressure and the actual monitoring earth pressure was analyzed by the case.