Displacement based seismic assessment of base restrained retaining walls

Abstract

The present work deals with assessment of earthquake-induced displacement of the base restrained retaining walls (RW’s). A detailed and rigorous finite element (FE) investigation has been carried out following the shaking table experiments on a scaled-down RW model. The FE simulations were performed by conducting several nonlinear time history analyses on a two-dimensional (2D) plane strain FE model of a prototype RW. The hardening and softening of backfill have been simulated by calibrating the Mohr Coulomb material model against the triaxial test results. Role of different backfill into the seismic performance of base restrained RW has also been investigated. It was observed that the cohesionless backfill has a slight influence on the earthquake induced displacement of base restrained RW’s. Amplification of horizontal acceleration in backfill has been observed with no direct correlation with the applied earthquake excitation. The understanding and findings based on shaking table experiment and FE simulations have been used for development of an analytical model for estimation of earthquake induced displacement of base restrained RW. The validity of proposed analytical model has also been examined against the shaking table experiment and FE simulation results.