The computation of earth pressure against rigid retaining wall usually adopts classical Rankine or Coulomb's theory, which can only get limit state of earth pressure, but in many practical cases, the earth pressure against retaining wall is in the non-limit state. So, this paper presented an analysis of the backfill under the mode of translation based on the improved thin-layer element method and the relationship between friction angle and displacement variation. The distribution of earth pressure, resultant force and its action point of a retaining wall under non- limit state were obtained. The optimal solution of earth pressure was obtained by using PSO (particle swarm optimization) to search the potential slip surface, on which the inclination angle of the segment for the thin layer element was extracted as a valuable. Then, the effects of the internal frictional angle, wall displacement on the distribution of earth pressure, resultant force, action point and potential slip surface were discussed. Finally, the results of the proposed method were compared with laboratory test data, which shows that the calculated results have a good agreement with the experimental observations.