,

'
I
'\,
" l.
) i ::,:. ';Z):") .GEOlECHNICAl
SPECIAlPUlllIGArlONNO.80 ::<,;,¡:; , ,"

ANAIYSISANOiDiSIGN > '," ,.! ,

'<
OFRETAINING
. .

STRUCTURES
AGAINST

EARTHQUJKf~. ífI!'¡~!Tlnr'f :"'J"T';'~ r;\~r.W,\ nr¡ J'nll

\ l

.
"1 " '
l '.
' '"
1 ' 1" f':,',' '1 ' '
! ¡,' . ' .. ~', , '

.
'

i:.- ,:',' ',-,,". i :. I.<" d

- ".- 'i
Proceedings01sessions IPO~orect I
br
SpilDymlJilcs CommltteeO, Iba ¡Geo-lDltibJte
01 the Alnerlcan
SocIety
01cMl--....
In clI1junqJion , CQpvention
Withthe ASeE National
in Washington,DC!

November10-14, 1998

E~ITED
JlYSHAM$Hf8rBAlfASH

PONTIFlcrA UN/VERRIIL\D t
,CATOLIf'A DEL PHHV
I BIBLIOTECA

1 INGENIERI~
tt
, Published by
\'
.III
~ $ '1'8i1l!!! American Soci.ty
o, CivilEngin..,..
~. r ~ '>-" _.. ."
 '..
; :-.~.:-:~,,:. ".

.'., .., '., ,) ":'f'::: ..¿..,.:,,;.:.; GEOTECHNICA¡)ECIAL PUBLICATXPNS

1) TERZAGHILECTURES
2) GEOTECHNICALASPECfS OF STIFF AND HARD CLAYS
3) LANDSLIDE DAM~:PROCESSES, RISK, AND MITIGATION
Abstract: i ;. 4) TIEBACKSFORBULKHEADS .
; l3)
Thispr~ings; ~/'ySíS'lUIdpesignojRetaini~gStf1lcture~
againstEarthq~d~~ 5) SETILEMENT OF SHALLOW FOUNDATION ON COHES~pNLESS
SOILS: DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE
botJt invited a,nd'éontributc:tl pa~rs, which focus dn the questions of 1) dynamic ed ¡J(elSures
6) USE OF IN SITU TESTS IN GEOTECHNICAL ~NGINEER¡NG
on fixedand movable rigid and flexible walls; 2) djsplaceme¡ts ~, ~on antl rotation of 7) TIMBERBULKHEADS .
walls under earthquak,es; 3) befFivior of fills avdabutme~ts during eartJ1tuake; and 4) centrifuge 8) FOUNDATIONS FOR TRANSMISSION LlNE TOWERS
tests on walls, Both analytica1and exPerimentaldata bave been ~ on possiblebehavior
9) FOUNDATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS IN DECOMPOSED RQ~K OF
ofretaining structures under seismic 10adil1g. A stúdy ~fthis volume ud other published . THE PIEDMONT PROVINCE
. literatun: shoY(.sconsideral:1tee~rt is beiRg devc¡>tedto.det~ation of teali+ d,4an\ic 10) ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF SOIL EROSION, DISPERSIVE CLAYS
pressures, displaceinent in transJation and ~otatioli of ~g struc~ and blhaVior of fiJIs for AND LOESS !
. l'
abutments. Since a synthesis ofthese stúdies is nQt~Ul1'entlyavaílable,:there ár\", no uniñed and
, ",' . 11) DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF PILE FOUNDATIONS- EXPERlMEN1: Ii l .
generally acceptab~e solutions to the above questio~. Howev¡:r, t1)ediJK:ussionSan..d ANALYSISAl'i!PQBSERVATION . !
presen,tations of the papers during the se~sion does Ií ghlight the need fp1 suc~ sowtipns and 12) SOIL IMPROVEMENT -
A TEN YEAR UPDATE
, ,
13) GEOTECHNICALPRACTICE FOR SOLlD WASTE DISl?OSAL '87
moredefinite,desc?pt¡onsof unsolvedp~blems.\ '~. 1 14) GEOTECHNICALASPECfS OF ~ST~AINS
Libr1!1'Y
of Con~ :catatOging-ip.-Piíblication
D~ 15) MEASURED PERFORMANCE SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS
16) SPECIAL TOPJCSJN FOUNDATIONS 11'

AnaIysis and desig~ C?fretaining stroC\ureS again~t eartl;lquakes ::proceedJugs 9fsessions 17) SOIL PROPERTIES EVALUATIONFROM CEN~JFUGAL MODELS
sponsored by the Soil Dynamics COlIll1)itteeofthe ASpE Geotechnjca,\ Engi¡yering Division in 18) GEOSYNTHETICS FOR SOIL IMPRbVEMENT !
conjunction with the ASCE Convention in Washington, D.C., Novemberlp.f4.1996/ edited by 19) MINE INDUCED SUBSIDENCE: EFFECfS ON ENGINEERED i
ShamsherPrilkash.: ¡ 1 ~ . STRUCfURES ' . I
p. cm. -- (Geotechnical special publiclition ; no: 60) 20) EARTHQUAI<;EENGINEERING & SOIL DYNAMICS.(11) i
Includes bibliographical references and inQexes. 21) HYDRAULIC FILL S~UCTURES I
ISBNO-7844-0206-X ..' ,;' ,. \ , I

I
22) FOUNDATIONENGINEERING : )
23) PREDICfEDANDOBS;ERVED
AXIALBEHAVIORpF PIL~ il (l \
} II
l. Retainingwalls-'~sign and constructiQn-Con~s. 2. EarthquaJceresis~t <Jesign- .

Congresses. 3. StrU~ anaIysis(Erigineering)-Congresses. l. PraIGIsh,ShainsJ.tPr.11: , 24) RESILlENT MODUL I OF SOILS: LABORA,TORYc,QN,DmONS

o
Ameri~ Society fCivil Engineers.GeotechnicaIEngineeringDivision. Soi~~amics .'" I 25) DESIGN
. AND PpRFORMANCE
. OF ~ARTII RETAIMING STRUCTURES l' J
26) WASTE CONTAINMENT SYSTEMS: CONSTRUCTION, REGULATION~
',.

Committee. III. ASCENational

. Convention(1996: Washington,D.C.) IV.~. ANDPERFORMANCE. ,.
TA17.A53 1996.
624.1'64-dc20: ¡, 96-44715:
CIP . -¡.
¡'" 27) GEOTECHNICAL ENGINE~ING C;ONGRESS .
. ..
¡
" , 28) DETECTION .OF AND CONSTRUCfION AT THE SOIllROCK
,

INTERFACE' ¡
The Society is not ~sp.onsible foe' any statements made or opinions expressed in its publications.
,. 29) RECENT ADVANCES IN INSTRUMENTATION, DATA ACQUISITI0N ;
ANDTESTINGINSOILDYNAMICS .
Photocopjes. ~uth~~tion to photocopymaterialfor internalor personal use'under '1 30) GROUTING,~OILIMPROVEMENT
ANDGEOSYNTHE1WS i
circumstinces not falPng witbiQ the faír use provisions of the Copyright Act is granted by A~~E . 31) STABILffY Á,NDPERFORMANCE OF SLOPES AND EMBANKMENTSIII
to librariesand ottu/rUsersregisteredwith fue CopyrightClearanceCenter (CCC)Transactior;,'
Reportingservice,p~v ided that ~e base fee of$4.00 per article plus $.25 per'page is paid
directlyto CCC, 222 Rosewood,Drive, Danvers,MA 01923. The identificationfor ASCE i.
" I
32)
(A 25-YEAR PERSPECTIVE) .
EMBANKM~NT DAMS-JAMES L. SHERARD CONTRIBUTIONS
.
, , ", '

,.""" 33) EXCAVATION AND SUPp'oRT FORTIffi URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE

Boo~ is ()..7844-02~-X{96/$4.00 + $.25 per copy. Requestsf~r special permissio~or buik~l\l, I 34) PILES UND~R~YNAMI<;: LOA,D~:. ':,.,' .,.
~ .' \
,, coPYlngshould ~ ~!lreSsed to PermissionS& CopyrightDept.,.ASc;E
. '. l' " I
.
'
35) GEOTECHNICAL PRACTICEIN DAM REHABILITA 'nON .
r !¡ I '1
CopyrightO 1996by:the¡Am,eri~ Socje~ ofCivil Engineers,
i .~ 36) FLYASH FOR SOIL IMPROVEMENT
37) ADVANCESIN SITE CHARACTERIZATION: DATAACQUISITION, I
AllRightsR~.~
LibraryofCon~
i ':.:
<¡:atalogqu-d;No: 9644715 I
:',
DATAMANAOEMENT AND DATAINTERPRETATI()¡~
38) DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF:DEEP FOUNDATÍÓNS: PlLES ANQ
PIERS IN SOILAND SOFf ROCK
¡

:
ISBN 0-7844-0206-:X; , " ' ..
39) CNSATURATED
SOILS .
Manufacturedin th,"?nited Stat, of Ame1ca. I ¡
. ' ,1: ." 40) VERTICALAND HORIZONTAL DEFORMATIONS OF FOUNDATIONS
: ¡! :
AND EMBANKMENTS I¡
:
¡
'. :! :¡ ! !
.
¡. :' ,
I. ,. i
, ., " .
.
 .~ ) ,)
41) PREDICIEDANDMEASUREDBEHA\!bR O, AVE SPREAD
FOOTINGS ON SAND I
42) SERVICEABILITY OF EARTH RETAINING SlRUCTURES
43) FRACTURE MECHANICS APPLlED TO GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER-
ING
;3
) ,
i:r
!
44) GROUND FAILURES UNDER SEISMIC CONDITIONS
45) IN-SITU DEEP SOIL IMPROVEMENT In PREFACE
;
!
46) GEOENVIRONMENT 2000 r I
I I
47) GEO-ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FACING THE AMERICAS Retaining structure may be subjected to seismic loads and experience either deformatio¿s !
48) SOIL SUCTION APPLICATIONS IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING andlor increasedearthpressures.Thesestrucluresmayb~cilher rigid'-masonryfree-standi~g.¡
f
.
49) SOIL IMPROVEMENT FOR EARTIIQUAKE HAZARD MmGATION retaining waHs for highways, sections of wing walls for¡hydraulie struetures, and abutmen:ts
of bridges. Flexible retaining struetures are most often r:einforeed earth sections. !
II)
. ,

50) IMPROVEMENT
FOUNDATION UPGRADINGAND REPAIR FOR INFRAS1RUCTURE I
Rigid struetures have been designed for dynamic earth pressures most of tbe timé. A so~u-I'
tion for displaeemcnts of rigid rctaining walIs was obt~ined by our Rcsearch Group at ~e'
l i
51) LANDSLIDES
52) PERFORMANCE OF DEEP
UNDER FOUNDATIONS
STATlC UNDER
AND DYNAMIC .
SEISMIC LOADING
CONDITIONS ( 1) University of Roorkee (India) in 1974 for the fírst time. Subsequently for t!te last two de-
ANALYSIS, MONITORING, AND MmGATION cades, their displacements were analyzed and designs based on permissibÍe displacemeht~
53)LANDALL CLOSURES
LAND RECOVERY
- ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEcnON AND were attempted. We have not reaehed a stage where aceeptable analytical tools and desig~
procedures for such structures are available. Studies on such structures during earthquakes i~
54)EARTHQUAKE DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF SOLID WASTE diffieult beeause earthquakes eannot be made to order! :Therefore, recourse is made to altert
LANDALLS nate studies, e.g. on eentrifuge and, shake table models.'and analytieal studies and their eom~
parison with performance records.. :
55) OF EXISTING FOUNDATIONS
EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED AND ABUTMENTS
MOVEMENTS AND SEISMIC RJ::MEDIATION (1 ) Thus Ihis session is organized with the objective to identify the state of practice in analysis
56) STATICAND DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF GRAVELLYSOILS and design of retaining struetures under dynamic loads'and addrcss the unsolved.issues. The
57) VERIACATION OF GEOTECHNICAL GROUTING papers were, therefore, invited from authors both within and outside the USA. There are 5
58) UNCERTAINTY IN THE GEOLOGIC ENVORONMENT eontributions from the US and 3 from overseas. This session was held at the ASCE Fail

59) ENGlNEERED CONTAMINATED SOILS AND INTERACTION OF SOIL
GEOMEMBRANE~ . namics Committee of (he Geotechnical Engineering O¡vision of ASCE.
60) ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF RETAINING STRUCTURES AGAINST
EARTHQUAKES
61) MEASURING AND MODELING TIME DEPENDENT SOIL BEHAVIOR
62) CASE HISTORIES OF GEOPHYSICS APPLIED TO CIVIL ENGlNEERING
" AND PUBLIC POLICY
63) DESIGNWITHRESIDUALMATERIALS;GEOTECHNICALAND
i:, CONSTRUcnON CONSIDERATIONS
Conventionin Washington OC on November 12, 1996 and was sponsored by the Soil Dy-
It is Ihe current practiee of the Geoteehnical Engincering Oivision lt:al eaeh paper pub-
lished in a Geotcchnieal Special Publiealion (GSP) b¿ reviewcd for its content and quálity.
These spedal technical public¡¡tions ¡¡re intended to reinforce the programs presented al con-
vcntion sessions or speeialtyeonferences and lo contain papers that arctimely and may oe
controversia! to some exlenl. Because of the need to llave the GSP available al the conven-
tiou, time ¡¡vailablc for reviews is generally not as long and reviews may not be as contpre-
hensive as Ihose given 10papers subrnitted lo Ihe lourpal of Ihe Division. StiJI we had orga-
nized our review proeess in a lirnely manner. At leasl' 2-posilive reviews were obtained for
cach paper accepted for publieation and discussion. In ;fact one paper will be published in the
Joumal based on our revicw process but was prcsenl~ at Ihis scssion. Thus Ihere;s bardly
any difference in Ihe purpose and teehnieal stalus of contributions to this gcoleehnical speeial
p~blication as compared to those in Ihe 10uma!. .
In accordance wilh ASCE policy, aIl papers publislJed in this volumb are eligiblc for dis-
cussion in Ihe loumal of the Geoleehnical Engineeririg Oivision and are eligible for ASCE
awards. Reviews of papers publishcd in Ihis volurne ~cre conducted by the Soil Dynamics
Commillcc of Ihe Geotechnical Enginccring Division.'The foIlowing eommittee membersor
coopcraling persons fromlhc gencral rnembcrship re~iewed Ihese papers:

T. Crespcllani p,anos Oakoulas

"
Ahmed W.M. Elgamal \V.O. Liarn Finn
; .,
Stevc Kramer Sanjeev Kumar
Jcen-Shang Lin Farrokh Nadim
Rowland Riehards, lr. Glenn l. Rix
Raj Siddharthan éctin Soydemir
A.S. Velctsos Mishac Yegian

v
}\f
 ') ')
/

Per&onal thanks go lo Panos Dakoulas, Chairman of the Soil Dynamics Cornmittee, for his
help apd support in organizing this session. 1 al so want to thank all the experts who gave both
t~e time and effort in reviewing the papers. Last but not least, thanks are due to all the authors
tonD.C. ,
wl]o kjndly accepted the invitation to contribute to this volume and to the session in Washing-
!, CONTENTS I

i
,, Shamsher Prakash, F. ASCE
.1 Seismic Prcssures against Rigid Walls I
Professor of Civil Engineering G.WuandW.D.LiamFinn " ~ 1
University of Missouri-Rolla
. ,. Rolla, Missouri
DynamicResponseof CantileverRetaining~alls :

August 28, 1996 A.S.VeletsosandAJI. Younan; 19

i ;
Session Organizer and Editor
On Seismic Displacemen~ of Rigid Retaining WalIs I
Y. Wu and Shamsher Prakash 21
Rotation of Large Gravity Wallson RigidFoundationsUnd~rS.eiswicLoadíng :

R.S. Steedman and X, Zeng "

In-Situ Dynamic Response of Cantilever WaJls :;38
Sreenivas Alampalli and Ahmed W.M. Elgamal '57
Seismic Analysis and Model Studies of Bridge Abutments ~
K.L. Fishman and R. Richards, Jr. , '"'''''' :77
Earthquake-Induced Ground Settlements of Bridge Abutment FiIIs
Raj V. Siddharthan and Mahmoud EI-Gamal : ,
100
Earthquake Destructivencss Potential Factor al\d perptanent Displacements
of Gravity Retainin~ Walls .
T.CrespelIani.C. MadiaiandG.Vannucchi , ¡24
Subject Index !135

Author Index /36

~'

... .:

!;

vi vii
 ) ')

SEISMIC PRESSURES AGAINST RIOID WALLS

!
¡
'

Guoxi WUI and W.D. Liam Finn2

I

ABSTRACT
, ¡
, Simplifiedlinearelasticanalyticalsolutionsare presentedfor the seismic
pressuresag~st rigid walls whieh agree closelywiili ~heexact solutions presented .
by Wood (1913). The finite element method is us~ to extend the analyses to :
nonhomogeneous elastic materials and to n~nline~ soils, The finite element :
analysesgive &1mostexact solutionsfor the elasticcases. Some practica1guidelines !
, are given for eStimating ~
the dynamicpressuresfor Wle practice, :

INTRODUCTION
!
i '

Seismic pressures against retaining walls are ~sually determinedusing the

Mononobe-O~abe method (Mononobe and Matsuo,: 1929; Okabe, 1924), This
a
method is based on the assumptionthat wedgé of so~ bQundedby the wall and the
shear failure ¡ilanein the backfillmoves as:a rigid bo~yunder t~e peak vertical and
horizontal ground accelerations or designatedftactio~s thereof. Most commonly
onlyhorizontrilinertiaforces
I
are inc1uded, ' 1
1

The Mononobe-Okabemethod is b~sedon thd assumptiontbat the wall can :

displace enough to permit a failure planeo Rigid wallsl such as deep basement walls, ! .
do not satisfythe displacementeritena for shear pla~e development,and therefore I ,
the Monono~e-Okabe approach cannot be used. Matsuo .and Ohara (1960) ,
:

formulatedan elastic solution to the seismicpressure;5against a rigid wall, but did , ,

not present any numeric31 values. Wood (i973) deveioped an exact analytica1 plane ::
strain solutíori assuming elastic response of a uniformjbackfill, Thesolution is quite:
.. complicated ~d is usually applied approximately, Significanterrors in estimating ,

.'
;:
,
, i I :! ' ;

1 AGRA Earth & Environmental, 2227 Douglas Road, Burnaby, a.C,

,¡ 2 Professor, Department ofCivil Engineering, University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, RC.
I
, .
.'
; i:
~¡
"
"
 ') '>

SEISMIC PRESSURES AGAINST RlGID WALLS

2 ltETAINING STRUCTURES ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

tbe dynabtlc tbrust can result fforn using tbe response spectrurn rnethoil ~f!~ecI by .y ~u/~y=O
Wood (1973) fot ~hquake loading, as will be shown later. Arias et al. (1981)
developed a simple rnQdel oftbe elastic bac1di\l IUIddeveloped analytieal d!:pressions (a)
for the response of the waU to both harmonie and seismie exeitation. Tbis rnodel is hornogeneous elastie soil
a rnodification of a shear bearn rnodel by ineluding horizontal normal stresses. In (plane strain) u=O
their analyses, tbey assurned tl1at no seismie stresses would be developed in the H u=O
vertical direction. Veletsos and Younan (1994) developed a rnethod based on the
equations of elastieity with the assurnption of no vertical stresses and applieable tó a
hornogerieous semi-infinite baekfiIl. AlI of these solutions are limited to elastie
response and, tberefore, are not directly applicable to backfiIls under very strong ~
shaking where tbe response is likely to be nonlinear.
--~ .~ ~
2L
A general rnodel is presented here that ineludes all previous rnodels as
special cases (Wu, 1994; FiM lit al., 1994). The rnodel is applicable to both finite
and semi~infinite baekfills. An analytical solution is presented for a uniform elastie
baekfill and a finite elernent solution for nonhornogeneous elastie and nonlinear
baekfills.; .
y
Thé elastic ana1ytical solutions are validated by eornparison with the exaet bu/~y = O
solutions[by Wood (1973). Comparisons with U1eother approximate eI~tie
solutionsl show fuat thé modifiJt shear beam model of Arias (1981) gives results (b) homogenpus elastic: soil
closer to! the Wood(1973) solution over all ranges of significant variables (Wu,
( plane stra~n)
;1994; Fioo;et :d., 1994): Veletsos et al. (1995) also adopted the simple Arias (1981) HI u =O ¡'u/~r.= O
mear model in fueiranaIysesof rigid walls wtth backfillsof tinite length'rather than

t
.

.themodeI )with a mqr~ exaet. hpression for shear stress used by Veletsos' and
Younan (1994). . u=O --x
! '
t
FORMULATIONOF ANALYSIS ,
" ,. . .

': Fi~re.l(a) sho~s fue geometry of fue plane strain problem .and associated Fig. 1. Definitionofrigiq-wall p,oblem:(a) original probl~m; and (b) equivalent i
bourtdary icbnditions: Á unifoCm elastie soillayer is c:oiwñed by two. verti~ rigid problembyusinganti~etric c:ondition.. i
. '
Wa11~and¡ ~ rigid baSe.,' The soil layer has a totallength of 2L and height of H.
When su~j~ed; to boiizontal ~ismic: body. forees, the soil layer in the system Initially, the soil is assumed to be homogeneous, isotr~pic and elastic:, with!a
generates:;in antisymm~trie field of horizontal normal stresses, cr.. with crx= o. at shear rnodulusG, Poisson's ratio v, and massdensityp. The equations of dynarnle
x = l. T\1erefo~e, fue .original wall-soil problem can be reduced to the system in force equilibriurn for the backfill in the horizontal and vertical directions are writténI
.
1
fig. 1(b)~of ~ subsequent analy~es. The ground acceleration is input at fue base of as i
the ~all-sp~ systetp. :. .1
'. !'.. ". . . .
:
Ocr.
-+-=p- Ut"7 a2u (9
. .: Alf1\ough
the p~oblernirivolvestWodisplacementcómponents,horiz.ontal
and vertiqaí c:omponents u and V, only fue horizontal displacements u have been Ox &y ae
takett into!ai:count
". in the, analysis ,in order to simplify the solution of the Problem. It
. I
I
wilI.be sho~ that this simplifi~tion does not induce a significant error in the Ut "7 OcrJ a2v (~)
-+-=p-
solu,tlona~~thatreliable
\ ,
estimateSofthe dynamicearth thrust can be obtained. Ox &y ae
¡ ;

¡;
,
 ') ')

4 RETAINING STRUCTURES AJIW..~IS AND D'ESIGN SEISMIC

PRESSURES
AGAINST
RIGIDlALLS: si '

I i "
where CJ.and CJyare the normal stresses in the X and Y directións and 1:")'is the shear Proposed Modified Shear Beam Model ¡I i: 1

stress in the X-y plane. The displacements in the X and Y directions are u and v, . ,1' , ,

respectively. In the proposed model, the shear stresses are mo~elled using the shear beam 1

,
analogy. Therefore, shear stress 1:><)'
is given by i, ,

1
1

i
For two-dimensional plane strain conditións, the stress components are
related to the displacements by
00 (8)
i
2G au av
1:><)' = G (]y
I
CJ =- (I-v)-+v- (3)
. 1-2v[ ax ay]
The normal stress CJ.,after assuming CJy= Oin thJ backfill, is fo~nd to be
I
I
2G av 00 I
=- (l-v)-+v- (4) 2 00 I
. =-l-v G-ax
CJ CJ (9)
y 1-2v [ ayax ]

Comparison with Eq. (7) gives

><)' (ay ax)
1: = G au+ av (5)

2 (10)
A-_/
1-'- 1- Vi
Since onlythe horizontaldisplacementsu are taken into account in the analysis,only
the equation of dynamicforce equilibriumin the horizontal direction, Eq. (1), is
used. Considering.variousforms of approximationto the problem, the goveming SubstitutingEq. (8) and Eq. (9) into Eq. (1) ~d comparingwith Eq. (6),
equation of the undamped free vibration of the backfillin the horizontal direction one finds, '
can be written as .
8=~ (11)
I-v iI
8G a2u + G a~u = a2u (6)
ax2 ay2 p 812 II
The values of 8 and 13 may be derived in a similar manner for other
and the normal stress CJ.is given by assumptions. Values are given be\ow for two other¡ models; CJy= O which was
adopted by Veletsosand Younan(1994) and v = O. i

v=0 Model
CJ. = I3G 00
ax (7)
In this case

where p is the mass density ofthe soil backfill, t is time, and 8 and 13are function> 0f (12)
8 = 13= 2(1- v)
Poisson's ratio v (Wu, 1994). 1-2v

The precise expressions for e and 13depend on the approximations used to

mod¿1 the wall-soil system. Three cases are examined and their corresponding 9:y = O Model
expressions for e and 13are given below.
In trus case,

11
 I
1
) ) I

6 17
'RETAINING STRUCTURES ANALYSIS AND DESIGI'I SEISMIC PRESSURES AGAINST RIGID WALLS I
II
tJ=~
l-y (13)
The natural frequencies ofthe syste¡n are given by II
I

2 G
/3= l-y (14)
ro2
mn
=-(b2
p'
+ea2 )
m
(2d)
!

The dynamicresponse of the wall-soilsystem for these thn!e$ei ean be The frequency ofthe first mode is given by
repre~nted by the same equation, Eq. (6), using appropriate VIihIesfor e.
Therefore,the generalderivationof dynamicsolutionsproceeds fromEq. (6). iI
2 GJt2. H2
roll =-.(I+e-) (2p
4pH2 L2
SOLUTIONS FOR LINEAR ELASTIC CASE: UNIFORM BACKFILL
i
The equation ofmotion for free vibration ofthe system is When the system is subjected to a ground acceleration Üo(t), the goveming
equation for undamped vibration becomes .

a2u =(eG a2u + G a2u ) (6 bis) i

P 812 &2 EJy2 a2u a2u a2u ..
p-- (6G-+G-)=-pu .(t ) (22)
! 812 &2 EJy2 o

; This e<Íuation may be solved by the separation ofvariables technique. i

iI
Modal solutions are given by I
tÁssume that the displacement solution has the forro, 1
I
i
[ r '; Ymn(t)+ro;..' Ymn(t)= -üo(t).am. (~3)
iu(X, y, t) = 2:L(A sin amx + Bcosamx)(C sin b.y + Dcosb.y). Ym.(t) (15)
¡
l' . mi.
. ¡!' . where the modal participation factor amn is given by
Fór th~ given boundáry conditions, the solution reduces to
;\ ¡¡ " 1
ii " , . ff psin(amx). sin(b.y)dxdy
I
(24)
¡ú(x,y,t) = Lt<l>mn(X,y).Ymn(t) (16) amn II
I ff pSin2(amx).si1).2(bny)dxdy I

in which;themode shapes <lI"",(x,y)

are givenby or
16
a = (*5)
~mn(x,y)= CI sinb.y.sinamx (17) mn (2m.:.. 1)(2n - 1)1t2 I
II
I

:b (2n - 1)1t. Damped solutions are obtained by intr~ducing appropriate equivalent

. " n= 1,2,... (18)
2H viscousdampingdirectIyinto the modalequations. IfY",::(t)= a..,fmn(t),then I

and (2m-l)1t. m=I,2,... fmn(t)+2A.romn' tmn(t)+(¡)~ .fmn(t)=-üo(t) (26)

am = 2L , ' (19)
 , I

í) ):
II Ii
! I
8
RETAINING STRUCTURES A1JIIALYSISAND DESIGN SElSMIC PRESSURESAGAIN'T RI1 WAL!.S 9
¡ 1
! i j
; I ! iI I
For a given ground excitation Üo(t), a solution flr the system is
p... =13G'LLa...cx...
... b.
S~.
co...'
m,n = 1,2i....
I
. ,i . '(32) 1

I
u(x,y,t) = LL.cx...f...(t)sina..x.
.. n
sitlb.y (27) or , I

32G H 1. . S~
I

I !
(33) !

where f_(t) is the time history solution of Eq. (26) correspondingto a particular p... =:,-. , 'L'~~(2n-l)? co... I

I ~ '1
modal ftequency co..,. The dynamic earth pressure acting on the walJ is the
I I
compressive
wall is . stress, U" at x=O. Therefore, the dynamicpressure distnoution along where
the ! I i I
~G (2n-l)7t 2 2 (2m -1)7t r I
co2 IM +- . : (34)
I

U./.=o=p(x,y,t)..o =JlG~ : p [{ 2H } 1- v { 2L } I]
&1.=0 (28)
¡
i
The ~eak dynamic thrust can. be estimateh by taking the appropriate !
summationof the modal spectralthrusts for all modekconsidered.
I 'Two commonly
i
The total dynamic thrust acting on the wall is used summation methods are the square root of the ~m of the squares of the peak i
modal contributions and the sum ofthe absolute value1;ofthe contribut:ons.
H . i
P(t) = Jo p(x,y,t).=o .dy (29)
In th~ limited studies completed So far (Wu,i 1994), the summation of the
absolute values of the peak modal contributions gavd the best approximation to the
total thrustagainst the wall for input. ftequenci~ less tban the fundamental
.! frequency ofthe backfill. In this range, die peak thnÍst was overestimated by about ¡

P(t) = JlG'LL am.cx... f...(t) (30) 20% for earthquake excitations using long backfills, L/H ~ 5.0. For higher ¡
m. b. ftequencies,the peak dynamicthrust maybe overesti.hatedby as much as 50%. The I
or , square root of the sum of the squares method appea:t;~to underestimate the response j .
and the errors are somewhat larger. For harmoni¿;input, the response spectrum !
, ! 16f... (t) method gives exact results for input ftequcmcies less (han the fundamental ftequency ,
(31)
P(t) = JlG.~~ 7t2(2n -1)2 L/H ofthe backfill, but ror greater ftequencies the error c~n be greater than 50%.
,
!
EV ALUATION OF MODELS
i
Thel peak. dynamic thrust on the wall for harmonic or earthquake motion can be ¡
I
deténnined asaCci.Jrately as desired using mode superposition. Studies were made I
I
to ~eterminethe.rate of convergenceofthe mode superpositionmethod. Generally, Static l-g solutions for horizontal forces baseil on the above models are used :
convergence to 'a solution acceptable for engineering purposes is very fast. For to test the varíousmodelsagainstthe exact solution~y Wood (1973).
=
walls with L/H 5.0, 75% Ilccuracy is achieved using just the first mode; for L/H = . I
1.5,' 80% accuracy was achieved. Generally, 95% accuracy was achieved by using ¡
Horizontal Static l-tt Solutions
just!the first ten:modes. However, for the studies described later, 600 modes were
used in order to achieve an 'exact' solution for assessing the accuracy of the For a l-g static horizontal gravity force, the function f..(t) is found to be
;
approximate method compared to the exact method ofWood (1973). !
ResDonse Spectrum Method
f... (t) =-L (35) ,
co2
... ,
. For earthquake motion, the modal spectral thrust acting on the wall
associated with a ftequency co...is determined using response spectral velocity S~" ,
The corresponding l-g static thrust is obtained as
 .~

') )
10 iETAINING STRUCTIJRES ANALYSIS AND DESIGN SEiSMlC PRESSURES ÁGAINST RlGID WALLS 11

16
2.0
(36)
~It :AG~~~~ 7t2(2n-l)2 'ro~ L/H (o) L/H=5.0
- Wood'sexoct
o 1.5 proposed model
'rhe acting point of the static thrust, corresponding to a ¡mtf<fu1itmode ~
« --- C1, '"' O
number b., is located at (sinb.H)lb. above the base of the wall. In particular, for ~ _v =O
n = 1 it is found to be 0.637 H above the base ofthe wall.
ti; 1.0
For a given wall with known soíl properties of the backfill, the total ::>
~
horizontal thrust against the wall due to l-g static horizontal gravity force is easíly I
f- 0.5
detenruned by doing a double-surnmationfor modes m and n in Eq. (16). To
generalize the solution of the problem, the concept of a normalizedthrust ratio is
introduced. This ratio is defin~dby
0.<0.0
:TIIRUST RATIO = TOTAL TIIRUST (37)
pH2A max

where A x i.sthe peak ground acceleration in consistent units. 2.0

I i , : (b) L/H=1,5
Compa~~ons with Wood (1973) Solution
i~ Ó 1.5
~
- woocrs exoct
~tatic l-g solutions were conducted,on walls with UH = 5.0 and UH = 1.5 «
~ ---
' proposed model
11, .. O
using the modelsdescribed above. The solutions are compared with the .exact --v=O
W:°od ~1973) soluHons (Wu, 1994; Finn et al., 1994).
f-
(/) 1.0
"", , ::>
~
------------
irhe propoSed'mOdified shear beam model gives results that are in very good I
agi-eembnt Withthe ~ood (1973) solutions, as.shown in Figs. 2(a) for UH = 5.0 and f- 0.5
2,(b) foi tJH' =1.5. The ay :d O model yields results that in very good agreement
also when UH = 5.0. SoluHons for UH ~ 5.0 are almost idenHcal to the solution
for the semi-infinite backfill fo~ which the Veletsos and Younan (1994) solution (ay 0.<0.0 O.p
= O)wa,s pbtained., For UH ~ 1.5, the ay = O model is less satisfactory.
", ,
, i
, Tpe v =,0 ~odel is ql,lÚeaccurate as long as the Poisson ratio v < 0.3. For Fig. 2. CompariSon of ap\,roximate soluHons for rigid-wall systems with exac~
higher ~alues of v,the solutions begin to deviate significantlyúom the exact Wood (1973) solution:(a) UH=5.0;and (b) UH=1.5. i
i
soluHo~\v¡ththe acc.uracydependingthe UH ratio. For UH = 5.0, the results úom , I
1 the v = p~model bec°!l1e unacceptable for v > 0.4.
I i' .'.
I ';r~eSe evaluation studi~s suggest that the proposed modified shear beam DYNAMIC THRUST ON WALL
model gives the best approximation to solutions for rigid wall systems with 1>oth
I
,
infiniteand finite backfills. Therefore, this model is used for all further studies in Uniform Backfill ,
this pa~er.
I
.' .:
The rigid wall system shown in Fig. 1 was subjected to both hannonic ~nd
,I ' earthquake motions and the resulting dynarnic thrusts against the wall vj-ere
!
evaluated for two ratios UH = 5.0 andUH = 1.5.' i
 ;
i
1) .) . i
i I
12 RETAINING STRUCTI1ItE! J\NALYSIS AND DESIGN SEISMIC PRESSURES AGAINST R~ID
;
WALLS 1311
!
¡I
I¡
The studies were conducted on a wa11with H = 10m backtillcd by an elastic. 4
i I,
I I

soil with a unit weight y '" 19.6 kN/m3 and a Poisson's ratio v = 0.4. The d)'!'lamic (o) L/H:05.0 Poisson's I"ot;o .. 0.4 I I
thrusts were evaluated as a function of fTequency ratios fRI and fR2,where fFI =of;lr. domping rqtio 10.
i 1\
and fR2= f;lfll, where ti = fTequency of the input motion, r. = fundamental fTequency
o,fthe backfill, and fll = fust natural fTequt1\eyófthe soil-wall system.
03
~
OC
- sinusoidol ~otions
apP9P earthquake: motions
i 11
~2 I
The fTequency of the harmonic input is easily controlled. The input
fTequency of the earthquake motion is defined as the predominant fTequency of the
:J
a::
! I, '
I
I
I

::c I i
record. To obtain a distribution of f1l for the earthquake motions, the shear i
n10dulus of the soillayer was varied. Two different earthquake motions were used;
1- 1
I ---.. i¡
El Centro (1940) NS component with A.-. = 0.348 g and the Yerba Buena EW
--t- -."'" I
I
cOmponent of the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 with A.-. = 0.067 g. The o 5
corresponding predominant fTequencies are 1.85 Hz and 1.61 Hz, respectively.
o, 2 .3i I
I
I
FREOUENCYRAtIO.fRI
!
. Thedynamicthrustsare shownin Figs.3(a) and3(b) as a functionof the ;
I

fi:equency ratio fRI. The data points are for both earthquakes. The peak dynamic I
thrust ratios resulting from seismic input are much less than those from sinu30idal i
4
i~put because there is less opportunity for resonant response to build up. poisson~s rotio :o 0.4 I

.i : (b) L/H-1.5
The dynamic thrust ratios fTom the earthquake motions are approximately
dompin í rotio 10- ¡
1~0for ftequency ratios less than 1.5. This suggests that tbe peak thrust, P"""" can
be taken as, P...,. = pH2A.-., where p is tbe unit weigbt and A.-. is the peak
03
~
a::
- sinusoidol motions
II
I
I
a~celeration. However, for fTequencyratios greater than 1.5 to 2.0, the l-g static \
.
I
ej solution maybe.very conservative. More studies are needed to see ifthese findings ~2
:J o.!'.!'¡'" eorth~urke motions
~ i
~e of generalapplicability.
i
.
Non-HomolZeneous Backfill: Parabolic Modulus Variation
::c
1-1
--
.
-:..
.

--.&__10--
I
!
I

. Similar studies were conducted for non-homogeneous backfi\1s in whicb the o I

5
s\1ear modulus varied parabolically with depth. The shear modulus is usually Q. 2 ! 3!
considered to vary as tbe square root of tbe vertical effective confining pressure FREOUENCY
,
RAl"1O. fRI
I
~hicb is equivalentto a parabolicvariation. Tbe analyseswere conducted using a
fip¡teelernentrepresentationofthe equationsofmotion in Eq. (6). A six-noqefinite
e1ementwith sixhorizontaldisplacementvariables(Fig. 4), was developed especially F;g.3. No"""""",,,,",""" vmo>tiof~ ""","" ... wthq"""
motlons. (a) UH-5.0,
. and (b)I IlH~1.S.
fc?rthis study. The displacementfield bas a linearvariationin the vertical direction
i
and aquadratic variation along the horizontal direction. The finite element
l. .
formulationwas.usedto comput~the dynamicthrust ratio as a functionof time
using the El Centro record sca1ed to 0.07 g as input. The finite element response is gives thrust ratios of approximately 1, which suggests that in this range the seismic
cOmpared with tbe results fTom the c10sed form solution in Fig. 5. The results are thrust on the wallcould be obtainedusing the l-g s1atic&olutiongivenby Eq. (36). !

almost identical, confirming the accuracy of the finite element representation.

Nonlinear Response ;
The dynamic thrust ratios against the wall were calculated as a function of
the fTequency ratio, fR2,for (a) sinusoidal input, and (b) El Centro ground motions, The backfill with tbe parabolic variatioQ in modulus is next analyzed
using a parabolic distribution of shear modulus with depth and elastic analysis. The assuming a. nonlinear dependence of damping and. modulus on sbear strain. The.
thrust ratios are sbown in Fig. 6. For fTequency ratios less than 1, the seh;micinput
 'f"
i
) ) i
14 I

kETAINlNG STRUCTURES ANALYSIS AND DESIGN SEISMIC PRESSURES AGAINST RIGID WALLS ; bI
i
y i
4 I
Poisson!s ratio ~ 0.4
II
U6 Us
U41 T 03
LIH = 5.0;: dampir)g10%
II
I

b II
~ -i-- El Centro input,

f--
u, .
u2
a
U
-1
x ~2
:J
a::
J:
~
i
- - . Sinusoidal :
motions
I
I
1- 1
\
~ , _. - ,I
I

~ :
, Fig. 4; if'inite elernent used in analyses. '-" ,; ... ... ¡
-.,--¡--- I
o " '!'
,:
; ''
I

-'-
E
260'
,
from F.E. anaIysia
from cIosecUonn aoIuIIon
o :1
i
.
2!
FREQUE~Y
I
3
RATIO, fR;
4:: .

'

,
J
5

Z !: , . I

, ¿ 100
,
------------------------ Fig.6. Tbrust ratio, as a functipn offfequency for:(a) sinusoidal inptit; and (b) El
lo-
V1
Centrogr9und motiorÍs;parab~licdistributionof shear modulus "

/iE ii ;
¡;. with depth an.d'elasti,cresponse. '
I
I
.1 iE ,O
¡; The effect of;the l~vel of shaking¡~>nthe seismic thrust on the:wall depe~s
; ~ !' strongly on the degree of nonlinearity in :the response. This is sbown in Fig. 7 tor
,
,C(
~ -100
. the stiff site in which the tbrust ratios' are plo~ed as a funetion af peak b~se
, ~i! ¡:' ; H-I.Om. Poisson's rolio 0.4; aeceleration for botb nonlinear and linear elastic analyses: At low levels of peiak
O I:
, ¡
; .' ' Sheor loIodulus 39240
El Centro inpul (0.07g)
~Po; domping lO.
base acceleration, w~en the response is etrectively elastic, both equivalent linear ahd
~
.

-200
linear elastic analyses give the SI\l{lCtIyust ratio. Thereafter, tJúsratio rema!ns
,11 O ,2 4 6 8 10 constant ror the linear eJastic analyses.! The thrust ratios derived by nonlinbar
'! ]
'! I
,
.
!:
. , TIME ( SEC ) analyses tend 10' inbrease with peak ~
acceleration, althougb the results ~re
affected somewhat by ~erelationship between the predominant period developed in
son~of dyn~
Fig. S ' bompan . tltrosts between the finite element and c1osed-fonn the nonlinear site and the predo~nant p~riod of t~e earthquake motidns. Wben the
¡ ¡ solutions for uni~orm soils for uniform bacldill for I1H=1.S.
. . . peak ground aeeeleration is 0.35 g, the thrust ratio is about 25% Júgher than for the

.
,

¡
:¡ ¡
. ;
'.::
':
'!
. ,
, linear elastic case. Por levels of peak gr~und acceleration between 0.1 g and 0.3 g,
wbieh is a very cornrnon range in practice, fue thrust ratio is fairly ,*ell
. analyslsiisbasCdon:theequ¡Valentlinear approaeh of Seed and Idriss (1967). Two approximated by LO, again eonfinning !hat the 1.0g solution can be quite usetu\.
analysFawere' cárriéd out fqr stiff backfill material with a shear modulus G. = Note that for low I~vels of aeceleration, when the response is sensibly elastie, t)tat
1.32,ocpOlcPaat the ~ase of;tlie dike fiII, and for a more flexible bacldill with a sb,ear
= s. the thrust ratio drop~significantlybelow 1.0. I
modufui of 66,OOOlcPa at t\:¡e base. The analyses were conducted for I1H , I
Scaled El Centro acceleration record s were used as input motions. The effects of The peak dynamic thrust ratios for both tbe stiffer anlj more flexible baekñlls
nonlin~ty on the dynamic response of the system were explored by scaling the El are compared in Fig. 8. The softer site 'shows the larger dynamic thrust ratios J..er
Centrb ,motions .so 'that records bad peak accelerations ranging ffom 0.05 g to the entire range of peak accelerations. i :
0.35 g. iTh,e shear sirain dependence ofshear moduli and damping ratios were taken
ffom Se'ed
1, arid Idriss (1970). !Maximum
' damping ratio DIIIIX
Was táken to be 300/0.
", ' , I,
i:
i;
, ,

1;
 ii
i) ;' )
i
16 RETAINING STRUCTIlREs AJlA:tYSIS AND DESIGN SEISMIC PR~SURES AGAINST RIGIP WALLS 17
i
11
iI
I 1.5 2
j Go= 132,OÓOkPa
I
!
- NON-LINEARN-IAlYSES
. - -- LINEARE~TlC ANAlYSES o '
r= . ---- I
Go = 66.000 kPa

I (/)
l/H - 5.0, H-IOm ~ I
Poinon', rolio 0.4 1- !
i O El C.ntro input en
! t= ~ i---
<
o: ~ 1 --- -- ...'" '

~
I
u
,! Iii 1.0
::> :i
o: ~:
J:
1- ~
I
, j
O
:" i 0.4
:,' 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3
,,¡
;:¡
0.5 .
0.0 o. , 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 PEAK BASE ACCELERATION (g)
I

i
i
PEAK ACCELERA TION (g) I

Fig. 8. A comparison ofthrust ratios resulting tiJomnonlinear response

, analyses of a stiff site and. a more f1~xiblesite.
I ¡ ,,
Fig. 7. Effect ofnonlinearityon dynamicthrust ratios for an initialparabolic
.
, :! '
'
f! distribution of shear moduIus with maximum modulus,
, I i ;
On the basis of a limited number of analyses of seismic response, the i :
G. = 132,000 kPa.

accuracy of r~sponse spectrum analysesappears to * frequency dep~dent. For '

The variations in the dynamic thrust rano for different soil stiffnesses,
1, .
:

di~erent l1Hratio and different peak ground accelerations, suggest that one should
input frequencies less than the frequency ot:the backfilt the thrust agaiiist the wall is
'1. ¡ be;cautious in using simplified estimates ofthe peak dynamic thrust, such as P = yH2
overestimated: by about 20%; for greater frequenci~, the error apprdaches 500/0.
absolute values of the peak
The modal ~~n~ribUtiOnSshould be surnm~d using th
'

~ or the response spectrum approach. For important designs especially with modaI contributlons. '
mQderate factors'of safety the finite element analysis developed herein is
, '
,

, ,

retornmended. The more simplified approaches should be used with a substantial A finit:e element version of the prop osed meth d was also developed for the
,; fa¿tor
. I . ofsafety. analysisof nOlmomogeneousand nonlinearbackfillso Is. Analyseswere conducted :
t
"

i
.¡ to show the dependence of the peak dynamic walI ressure on the peak ground
,
"
¡

.,
CONCLUSIONS

i A simplified approximate method based on a modified shear beam model has

beien presented for the analysis of dynamic earth pressures against rigid walls. The
m~thod gives pressures within 5% ofthe exact soIutions proposed by Wood (1973)
acceleration for earthquake motions. The results thow that the assumption of
elasticity may underestimate substantially the dyn ' e pressures under strong
shaking, , r ''
i
;

:1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I
fo! uniform elastic backfill.
¡
'. .

The basic researchin this paper was support~ by the National Science and: ;
¡. Mode-superposition solutions much simpler than those proposed by Wood
(1'973) are developed from the modeI. The moda! solution converges very rapidly. EngineeringCouncilof Canada under Grant No, 5-81498. The authors appreciated ¡
For harmonic input just one mode gives dynamic pressures within 75-80% of the the constructivecornmentsof the reviewers. !
ciact solution. Iften modes are used the accuracy is 95%. .

.,
 .,'"'-'''''''r'' "',,'" -'.~,,::'

') /)
18 RETAINING STRUCI1JRES ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

REFEItEÑCI!;

Arias, A Sanchez-Sesmll,F.J. and Ovando-Shelley,E. (1981). A Siíl~~d Elastie

Model for Seismie Analysis of Earth-Retaining Structures with Limited
Displacements.Proc. Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotech. Earthquake Eng.
and SoUDynamics,St. Louis, MO, Vol. 1, pp. 235-240.

Finn, W.D. Liam, Wu, G. and Ledbetter, R.H. (1994). Problems in seismie soil.
structure interaction. Proc. 8th Int. Conf. on Computer Methods and Advancesin
Geomechanics,Morgantown,West Virginia,Vol. 1, pp. 139-151,May 22-28.
I
I
Matsuo, H. and Oliara, S. (1960). Lateral earth pressure and stability of quay walls I DYNAMIC,RESPONSE OF CANTILEVER RETAINING WALLS, I

during eiu1hquakes. Proc. 2nd World Conf. Earthquake Eng., Tokyo; Japan.

Mononobe, N. and ~tsuo, M. (1929). On the Determination of Earth Pressures

Ii A. S. Veletsos,1 Member ASCE, and A. H. Younan,2 Associate Member, ASCE ,

¡I
During Earthquakes. Proc.,World Eng., Congress, 9. I I -
',1
I I
Okabe, S. (1926). General Theory ofEarth Pressures. 1. Japan Soco ofCivil Engrs., i ABSTRACT I
I I
12:1. i ,

I ¡Tltecompletepaper will appear in tlte I

Seed, H.B. andldriss, I:M. (1967). Analysis of Soil Liquefaetion: Niigata
Earthquake. J. SoilMeehaniesand FoundationDivision,ASCE, Vol. 93, No. SM3, I
pp. 83-108.
Seed, R.B. and Idriss, I.M. :(1970). Soil'Moduli I!I1dDamping Factors for Dynamie
: JournalojGeotecJinicalEngineering I
A critical eValuatibn is made of the res~onse to horizoqtal ground shaking oí fieL
ible cantilever retaihing walls that are elas~cal1y constrained against rotation at th~ir
base. The retained medium is idealized as'i a uniform , linear,'.' viscoelastic stratum Ibf '

Response Analyses. Repor't No. EERC 70-10, Earthquake Engineering Research

eonstant thickness and Isemiinfinite extent ¡P the horizontal direetion. The paramet~rs
Center, UniversityofCalifohúa, Berkeley, California, December.
,
, .
,
varied inelude the flex¡bilities of the wall and its base, the properties of the retain~d
Vel«sos, AS. ~d Younan; A.H. (1994). Dynamie Soil Pressures on Rigid Vertical medium, and the chai¡¡.cteristies of the srPund motion. In addition to 10ng-periQd,
Wall,s. Earthquake Engineering and StruetÚral Dynamics, Vol. 23, pp. 275-301. effectively static excit~tions, both harmonic base motions and an actuJlI earthquak.e
record are considered. The response quanti~es examin~d inelude the displaeements ¡of
Vel~~s, AS., P~kh,V.H. ani! Younan, A.H. (1995). Dynamie Response ~fa Pair
of Walls Retaining a Visco-elastie Solido Earthquake Engineering and Structural the wall relative te the¡moving base, the w~1Ipressures, and the associated shears apd
bending moments. The method of analysis employed is described only briefly, emp~a-
DyÜamics, Vol. 24, pp. 1567-1589.
sis being placed on the presentation and interpretation of the comprehensive numeri~al
, I .

WoÓd, J.H. (1973). Earthquake-Induced Soil Pressures on Structures. Ph.D. Thesis,

subrp¡tt~ to thp California Institute ofTechnology, Pasadena, California. SOlutions., !' :,
, Followingare some of the more impohant
I
conc1m¡ionsof this study: :'
Wu,' G. (1994). Dynamic Soil Structure Interaetion: PileFoundations and Retaining
1. For the soil-v.:all system examineq, both the magnitudes ~nd clistributionsi of
Structures. Ph.D. Thesis, [Department of Civil Engineering, University of British
the wall displacements, wall pressures a~d
, . I associated forees induced. ' by horizontal
... , '

Colu~bia, Vancouver,B.C;, Canada. ' ,

ground shaking are quite sensitive to ~e ftexibilities of the wall ;and its base.
Increasing either flexibility reduces the hotizontal extensional stiffness of the retained
medium relative to its::shearing stiffness, a~d this reduction dec{eases the proportio~ of
the soil inertia forces that gets transferred to the wall and, h,ence, the forces developed
~~ ' , ,¡ I

I Bro~n &RootProf., bept. ofCivil Engrg., Rice Univ., Houston, Texas 77005-1892
2 Post-Doctoral Fellow" Dept. of Civil Engrg.,iRice Univ., "ollston, Texas

i
19 I
!
 ) ,)
20 RETAINING STRUCTURES ANJa.YSIS AND DESIGN

2. For rea!istic wal! flexibilities, the total wall force or base shear is one-half or
less of that obtained for a fixed-based, rigid wall, and the corresponding reduction in
the overturning base moment is even larger. With the information presented, the
precise dependence of these critical forces on the l'Iexibilities of the wall and it~ base
may be evaluated readily.

3. When the dynamic amplification effects of the retained medium are neglectcd,
the magnitude of the total wall force obtained for realistic wal! flcxibilities by the
present method of analysis is in reasonab!e agreemcnt with that eompllted by the
limit-state, Mononobe-Okabe method which also disregards lhe dynamic ¡
amplifications. Additionally,the effective wal! height, which is the height by which ON SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTSi OF ¡:
the total wall force must be multiplied to obtain the overturning base moment, may RIGID RET AINING W ALLS I : i
¡ fI
well be of the order of 40 percent or less of the actual wal! height. These values are in
close agreement with the 1/3 value involved in the original M-O method, and By Yingwei Wu' ~d Shamsher Prakash2, Fe'low, ASCE
substantially smaller than the 60 percent value recommended in the Seed-Whitman
I
i
!
modification of the method.
ABSTRACT
j" . 4. For systems excited by earthquake ground motions of the type recorded
,.. ,
i during the 1940 El Centro, California event, the dynamic amplification factor. for total Rigid retainirig walls experience both sliding and rocking displacement during
wall force for the most unfavorable combination of system parameters is likely to vary earthquakes. Riehards and Elms' (l979)method i~corporales only sliding
from 1.3 for fixed-based, rigid walls to 1.9 for walls of high flexibility. The effective displacements in designo A realistic method of computing both sliding and rocking
¡ displacementsof thewalls basedon nonlinearsoil propertie~both for the base soil and
wall height, on ihe other hand, is insensitive to the ground motion characteristics, and
¡ backfil! was developed by Rafnsson and Prakash (1994). A pesign procedure based on
l.;
~ay be taken equal to that obtained for 'statically~xcited' systems.
5. Even for the 1940 El Centro earthquake motion, the maximum wall
qisp1acement relative to the moving base for realistic systems is found to be Icss than
this methodwas Ten developedby Prakash.e( al (1995, l .
Comparisons !>fthe displacements oftypical walls by bpth the methods have been
%
t~e values of 0.1 to 0.4% of the wall height normally acccpted as the minimum made. AIso, typical field data from recent earthquakes has peen analyzed lo compare
the observed displacements with the computed: displacemtnts.
required to develop a limit state in the retained material. ; i
, .

I
. 6. The comprehensivenumericalsolutions presented and their analysis provide INTRODUCTION i
" *ot only valuable insights into the effects and relative importanceof the :llImerous . . I
. factors thatinfluence the response of the systems considered, but also a sound Rigid retainin'g walls experience both sliding and rotatipnaldisplacementsduring
framework for assessing the behavior of even more complex soil-wall systems. 1t is an earthquake (Rafnsson 1991, Prakash andWu 1996). Seteral analytical procedures
hoped that the information presented will also lead to a greatcr appreciation than to compute displacements of rigid walls have been ,*oposed. Earlier methods
considered only kliding ofthe walls (Richard and Elms 1/979.Prakash 1981). More
~ppears to exist at present of the value of elastic methods of analysis for the problem
'examined~ . recently solutions have been developed to consider bolh sliding and rocking
displacements (Nadim and Whitman 1983,1984, Raf$son 1991, Rafnsson and
. 7. The effects of nonuniformity in the shear modulus of the retained mediulll and Prakash 1994, Prakash et.al. 1995 a, b). In ~ome sludi~s, unrealistic assumptions
iof separation at the wall-medium interface were examined briefly from a static point regarding soil pr~perties have been used, e.g., rigid p1astic, pr linear soil. ~Iso artificial ¡
I restraints were pl1¡cedon the wall so that it may either tilt ~rst or rotate first. Prakash
.; iof
, view. The dynamic aspects of these issues require further study. and Wu (1996) c9mpared the performance of two rigid walls during earthquakes with

Iheir computatio~s and found good agreemen~- I

I Graduate studeilt, Civil Engrg. Dept., Univ. ofMissollriLRolla, Rolla, MO 65401

2 Praf. ofCivil Engrg., Univ. ofMissouri-Rolla, Rolla. ~1o 65401

21
¡. .¡
 ) ')

22 RETAINING STRUCTURES ANALYSIS AND DESIGÑ RIGID RETAINING WALLS SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTS 23

tar dis~acement-based design ofrigid walls, onIy two ofth~ abovt aalyses havc ¡,
b~n adapted. D = -;e37V 2 -9,' (l!.)
A (1)[
Ag' i
l. Richards and Elms (1979) method; (RE method).
2. Prakash, R¡ifnsson and Wu (1995 a, b) method; (PRW methed). Where: A is coefficient of peak horizontal ground acceleration.
V is the peak earthquake veJocity.
In this paper, computations of displacements of typical walls have Men tnade by the N is the coefficient oflimiting wall acceleration
two methods. AIso walls which experienced displacements in recent eartlx¡uakes have
been analyzed and the result compared with the field data. Nadim (1982) and Nadim and Whitman (1983) also develop¡;d a firtite element
solution ofthe mathematical model ofthe soil system and concIuded that: '
I
At present (1996), no-information is available on the permissible displacements of
rigid walls. Only European Prestandard, Eurocode (1994) has introduced the concept l. Earthquake loading may result in a residual force °!l the wall, which may bti
ofpermjssible displacement in aseismic design ofretaining walls. A detailed discussion as much as 30% greater than the st¡¡tic active force. ;
ofthe permissible displacements has also been presented. 2. If the ratioof dominant frequency of groupd motion (t) to the fundamental
frequency of backfill (fl) is greater than 0.3, the amplification of motion in th~
STATE OF TIIE ART backfill plays an important role in the permanent
,
displacement ofthe wall. I
I
General The fundamental frequency ofthe back;fill is determined as:
:-r-
V
1rhere are several Pfocedures available in published literature to compute f = !.. Hz (2~
displacementsof rigidwall$.Rafusson(1991) has prepareda comprehensivereview of 1 4H
these procedures.Onlythe one relevantto our work willbe incIudedhere. Where: V, is shear velocity (m/sec),
I

i, II :l' H is height ofwall (m) I!

! Nadim (1980) and Nadim and Whjtman (1984) developed a method to evaluate
permanent rotation and ttanslation ofgravity retaining walls with dry, cohesionIess
ba,ckfill. AlI ela~tic defol-mations were neglected. The work previously done by
Rlchards and Elms (1979) was extended to study the tilting effect on a wall. The
.
assumptiol}s in this solution are:
:: .j , I
,l. The foundation soil has a constant moment capacity below which no rotational
movements take place. Once the moment capacity is reached, the foundation
soil deforms plasÜcally in rotation. The soil thus behaves like a rigid-plastic
material.
: 2. The center of rocking is at a fixed point at the base ofthe wall.
¡ :3. When the activecondition exists, a failure zone consisting ofinfinite number of
! parallel planes develops in the backfill. This assumption allows to assume
continuity, when the
, wall is tilting.
'The resulting mathematical model led to a solution involving several coupled
equations.which require M iterative procedure to obtain.a solution. The horizontal
grdund accelenition coefEcient (N) initiating plastic rocking (N.J and plastic sliding
W.w is evaluatcid.TRe loy..er value bf either NIikor NoIjddetermines whether sliding or
rocking motion will govem the displacement (D) of a wall that takes place during a
particular earthquake. This displacement is then estimated from Eqn 1 (Wong, 1982).
The minimum value ofNoIidinland N~ is used as N value in this equation.
i .
The finite element solution takes into:¡¡ccountboth sliding and tilting of waIJ.
However,because'of the boundaryconditibnsthat are imposedin the idealizationJf
the problem, the results are conservativ¡:.The following design prdcedure was
recommended to determine displacements,.ofretaining
I
walls: ' I
1. Determine [l'
2. Determine f.
3. If f/f\ is l~ss than 0.25 neglect the amplification of ground motion. i
4. If f/fl is appr6ximately 0.5, increa1e the peak acceleration (A) and the peak.
velocity Cv) ofthe design earthquak.e by 25% to 3()!11o respectively. :
5. Iff/fl is between 0.7 and 1.0, increke A and V by 50%.
6. Use new values of A and V to determine the displacements (Eqnl).
Richards and Elms Method: (RE method)
A simplified method for dynamic desigR of rigid retaining wallshad been propos~
by Richards and Elms (1979). This metl10d is based on Newmark's sliding bloc,k
analysis (1965) and Franklin and Chang' s (J 977) solution for upper bound permanerit
displacements for several natural and synthetic ground motions. This approach
determines the wall dimensions based on permissible displacement. A brief description
ofthis method is givén below: ¡I
¡
!
 1) )
I
I
24 RETAINING STRUcñJUs ANALYSIS AND DESIGN 25
RtGID RETAINING WALLS SEiSMIc.'oISP¡LACEMENTS

l. Select permissible displacement (d), In the above equations, m represents -

the mass ofthe J..all, M"", the mass moment
2. Determine A. and A. ftom a given ~i9l'nic zone (Applied Technology Council, of inertia, X. the horizontal displacement, 6 the angular' rotation, and e the dynamiC
1978), . damping. Subscripts "HS" and "HR" represent total damplng for backfill in sliding and
3. Determine coefficientof cut off acceleration IXh(Eqn. 3). rocking respectively, subscript "x" sliding, and "R" roíation. The stiffuess (k) and
'25
= A -o.u:
damping ( e ) in several modes are presented elsewhere (1}afusson and Prakash, 1991).
IX (3)
h { Aad r
Where d is permissible displacement.
A. and Av are acceleration-coefficient in Applied Technology Council i
¡ . (ATC, 1978)
r-r-"~-'--'-r
4. Compute dynamic active lateral earth pressure behind the wall by using Mononobe- / I
. -'
¡
i
Okabe method for IXhcomputed in Eqn 3. /
. ex i
5. Compute weight of wall by using inertia force of the wall and considering force
-~:G'
.. ~ -kx I¡

')
. equilibrium. mx I I
: 6. Apply a factor of safety to the calculated weight. A value of 1.5 is recommended
and wall dimensions are then determined ! i

. ,;;.
;',; ~x'¿ (a)
. .. Only sliding motion is considered in this method. For further details, sce Richards k x
x r-'T'---"' ~-'¡--
;.¡ I1 and Elms (1979). .
:: I ,

Prakash. Rafnsson and Wu's method: (PRW method). l:a \ ¡oa j

I!"
.'
A soltition technique foi' simulatingthe response of rigid walls during an earthquake
has been proposed by Rafusson (1991). Using this solution technique,a complete
design procedure has been developed by Prakash el al(1995 a, b and 1996). This
model consists of a rigid wall resting on the surface of the soíl and subjected to
horizontal exciting groond motion. The soil behavior is non-linear for both backfill and
base soil. Both material and geometrical damping in sliding and rocking motions have
.
~<I>6
kcj>6
/ '-
f.
\~G.

- ../
I,
i
/
)¡<<I>6

(b)
.
.
!

¡,
i
I
I
r---I'~"'-~--!-
been considered, Figure 1, (Rafusson 1991, Rafusson and Prakash 1994). In Figure 1,
k represents the stiffuess and c the damping of the soil. Mathematical model in Figure "
2 represents the displacements in active case. Nonlinear behavior ofsoil is inc\uded in
definingthe followingproperties,both at the base as wellas the backfill: . Imx
.. 1L ~X'Ccj>é
-.-
i
-c~~1'
~
k x Y-416
(1) Soil stiffuess in sliding. (2) Soil stiffuess in rocking.
.:
"
(3) Geometrical damping in sliding. (4) Geometrical damping in rocldng. --- Mmo6 j
(5) Material damping in sliding. (6) Material damping in rocking. -c.6. Exx-
-
The equations of motion for horizontal sliding and rotation in active case are written t+6 '-~-~/ (c)
as: . Figure 1. Systemof forcesin mathematicalmod~1of retainingwall: (a)
m;;" + Cx ~+ kxXs + mee - em6 - kHs6 = Px (t) (4) slidingonly,(b) rockingonly,(c) combinedslidingand rocking
(Rafnsson 1991,Rafnsson and Prakash 1994).
M",J3 + ~ 6 + kR6 - C¡m ~- ~ Xs = Mx (t) (5)
;.
 ) )
I
I
26 RETAINING STRUCTURES ANALYSIS AND DES'IcH RIGID RETAINING WALLS SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTS 127

l. x..,p -1
r-' 1.0
I \
I \
I
I 1
1 x=4
r !
1
1
1

\ x, + ~e ~..t
k' [x.+ftRéJnH
0.8

"G 0.6 j
1
H

f I
1
!
.~'
'¡r
111' \
~
c.
e
[
C., X,+y, He] ) T
x.+nH~nH
()
E
.......
() 0.4
j

k. [x,+y,He ]nH
1
I
/ ~ \e
~1
0.2
1
L-; ---::-.-
e. Cxtx, 1x,1 0.0
c.t ~ 10-e 10-' 10-' , 10.3 10-' . 10'1

k.e ~ Cyclic Shear Slrain I

I
i

Figure3. Averagevalues of G/Gm..v~rsus shea,r strain (y) for different solls

(After Seed and Idriss 19.70,for sand; Seed, Wong, Iddss and
Tokimatsu 19f!6,for gravel; Vucetic and Dobry 1991, for clay with
FIgure 2. Mathematieal model for stiffness and damping constants for the active 1'1=30). !
¡, , : c~se(Rafnsson1991,Ra(nssonand Prakash1994). -
30

~
Tlie' method 6f computation is described here in brief only (Rafnsson 1991).
o 25
i' :;:;
«1
: ;1. Wall dimensionsare determined' for given factors of safety under static o::
i: conditiori. t>1120
c::
. 2. CuÍnulative displacements and rotation ofwall are then computed for different '0.
:, loading cycles (magnitud e of earthquake) for a given ground motion. E
«1
15
'3. The computed displacements are compared with the permissible displacement. o
14. If the computed displacement is larger than permissible displacement, wall ¡¡¡ 10
i:
!.
section will be redesigned ior the permissible displacement. .~
QI
-:;; 5
i Nonlinear soil modultis and material damping with strain used in this solution are ::;:
sho~in Figure.3 and 4 respectively. The values ofG/Gmox and damping ratio for silt O
are obtained from the mean value of sand and clay (pI=30). lO-e 10-' 10.3 10-2 10-'
.
I
" Cyclic Shear Slrain
i ¡'
, : J
Figure 4. Average values of material damping ratio «() and shear strain (y) for
different soils (After St!ed and Idriss 1970, for sand; St!ed, Wong,
Idriss and Tokimatsu 1986, for gravel; Vucetic and Dobry 1991, for
clay with 1'1=30). I

'1
(:
, ,1
1
j ) )
28 RETAININGSTRUC~ Jo\MALYSIS
ANO OESIGN RIGID RETA1NING WALLS SEISMIC O~SPLACEMENTS

COMPARISON OF RESULTS BY 'ffiE 1WO METHODS O.Sm

',---t Z7';.,-
Parameters Used for Comparison I '
I :
I Compact.d poo,ly
! g,.d.J grave!,sil! (OM)
For comparison of displacement by the two methods, a typical wall of 6m high was
studied. The basis of comparison is as follow: l
.

.
4>~ 33.0'
/) = 21.0'
~ oj5

Fix the section by RE 's recommendations: then comoute the displacements b..Y..ERW g y,=21¡60kNIM'
method and compare with RE permissible displacement. u ~op
w%=;10%
In RE method, permissible displacements must be known to determine the wall y,-2~.S8kNIM'
section. Therefore, a permissible displacement oí 2% of waIl height, ic O.12m, was i
adopted. The vaJues of A" (0.4) and A. (0.4) for specific location, e.g. Orange County
(CA), have been adopted (ATC 1978). Olher pararneters used in this analysisare listed ,---77<0: ' f 3.1037m ¡
.! in Table 1. Cutoff acceleration for the parameters in Table 1, computed from Eqn 3 is W.1I g,aded sand (SW)
0.144g. y,=19.44 kNIM' w", = 8%
4>=35.0' u-O.)
/) = 23.3' ._~..
For a displacement of 0.12m, height of 6m and soiJ propertíes as in Figure S, lhe i ,
e = 0.46
lo;;" wall section was fixed according to RE recommendations for the above parameters. i! ¡
Base widths used in this study are computed by RE method considering fuIl base . r
I
,,,
frietion angle (ie. o = <1». Figure 5. Section ofwall and soil combination ~sed for analysis (BFI-BS3). ':
i
I
¡. Table 1. Parameters used in the analysis.
For typiCal properties ofthe base soil and backfilliin Figure S, a plot of cumulative; ¡
displacemeóts with number of cycles is shown ini Figure 6. Inthis figure, thre~
Parameter Ranl!e ofValues
" accelerationshave been used. ! . [
11,
Height ofwaIl (m) 6 i i
Plot (a) in Figure 6 is displacement computed! by RE 's cutoff acceleration oE
I '.
Location usd for analysis Orange County, CA O.144g. AcCording to RE 's procedure, there is no disdlacement of tbe wall for ground
l. ¡.
0.4 molion smaller tban cutoff acceleration. However, by!PRW method, the displacemenl~
i l' :;i I A.
in 10 cycles (M6.7S) and IScycles (M7.5) are 4.3gem and 1O.86cm respeclively. In
A" 0.4 RE's method, the soil is assumed rigid plastic. Therefore, these displacements canno.
be determined and are neglected. , i , !
Permissible displacement (m) 0.12 (2% ofheight ofwaU) . , I :
0.4 Plot ( b ~in Figure 6 is forground motion oí O.4glThe displacements for 10 cycles
Ground Motion (g)
(M6.7S) and IS cycles (M7.S) are 28.IScm and 46.tOcm respectively. This is larget
Frequency (Hz) of ground motion 1 than the pet'rnissible displacement of RE 's (12cm) w~ich is the basis offixing the wall
section.
Magnitude of earthquake M6.7S and M7.S
.' I I :
Number of cycles 10and IS Plol (c) in Figure 6 is for ground motion oí O.iS6g( the differenceof 0.4g amI'
0.144g).The displacementsfor 10 cycles(M6.7S)3nd IS cycles (M7.S)are 14.S6cm
Soil properties for base soil and backfiIl See Table 2
and 27.12cm respectively.These are also largerthah RE's displacementsof 12cm. .
i .

.i

i
, '
 I

1, i
')
i,
3'0 RETAINlNG STRUCTIJRES ANALYSIS AND D13sW<;JN " RIGID RETAINING WALLS SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTS i 31
,,
I

0.5
and 3 ground motioDs, ie. O.I44g, O.4g ami 0.256g, and for M6.75 (10 cycles). In Table
E
~
3, for each of these accelerations,
'displacements
sliding displacements, rocking degrees and tbtal
at the top ofthe wall have been listed. A critical stl1dy ofTable 3 sh6ws
0.4
¡::
'" that: I,
6'" ,
CJ 0.3 l. The total displacement for cutoffacc61eration of O.I44g varíes from 4.39c~ to
.,
'"il.
en
20.84cm.This is neglectedin RE method. ¡
:a 2. Displacementsin sliding only ~orO.4gground motion is from 14.16r~ to
'" 0.2 43.93cm. On1yin 12 ofthe 21 cases in this study, the sli,d,ingdisplacem~nts ¡
.~
';¡j were within 150% of the RE 's permissihle displa¡:,ements. I "
"

3. Total displacements for O.4g grbund motion are from 28.l5cm to 45.6lcm, i
1I
,~ 0.1 neglecting ,cases with very \.arge displacemellts whi~,h may be cons*ute
;:! !:
U failure, as discussed later. I !
0.0
I 1,
1,

O 5 10 I!
15 There are no g~ide lines on permissible displacements yet. A general discuskion
Number ol Sycles on this questionis presentedlater. ¡ I 1;
'!

Figu're ¿. Cumulative displacements of proposed wall section by using thJ"et

ground motion (BFI-BS3). Table 2. S~iI properties of bas~ soil and backfilÍ used for ana,lysis.
,
Rotations ofthe wall for 0.4g ground motion and earthquake ofM6.75 and M7.5
BASE SOIL (BS)
are 1.29° and 2.15° respectively which results in 13.51cm and 22.51cm displacement soil voíd e PI
Yd <1> ()
v w"1o Glox
¡¡.tthe tapo Therefore, displacements in sliding only are 14.64 cm and 24.19 cm for ratío
type kNlm' deg deg N/m' Mpa
~6.75 and M7.5 earthquakes respectoively.These values are closer to th~ permissible
,displacement of 12cm used in RE 's design method. In faet sliding displacement (14.64 BSI GW 21.07 37.5 25.0 0.25 0.3 - - 6 191

*
I
cm) for M6.75 is extremely close to the permissible displacement of 12cm adopted BS2 GP 1.18 3M 24.0 0.36 0.3 - -; 6
here.
BS3 SW 18.00 35.0 23.3 0.46 0.3 ,- - ' 8 19
lt will thus beseen that: 22.7 0.56 0.3 - - ; 10 120
BS4 SP 16.82
I
34.0
BS5 SM 16.51 33.0 22.0 0.68 0.3 - 4' 11 14
1. There are significant displacements of this waIl for the cutoff acceleration of
0.144g. In real soils, which may be not exhibit rigid-plastic behavior, BS6 SC 15.25 30.0 20.0 0.95 0.3 - 13 14 152
I
neglecting those displacements wiIl be unsafe.
BS7 ML 1¡1.I5 32.0 21.3 0.85 0.3 9.57 4' 14 102
i 2. For design earthquake acceleration of O.4g, the displacements of the waIls are ,
2.35 times and 3.89 times the permissible displacement for real earthquakes of BACKFILL (BF) .
I
I . I
'
M6.75.and M7.5 respectively as compared to RE 's displacements. 6 e PI w%
soil 'Yd <1> void v G,,\u
3. RE method predicted closely only sliding displacements for this wall with :

M6.75. BFI GM 19.6 33.0 22.0! 0.35 0.3 - - I

I lO 164

4. This wall experiences comparable displacements in rocking also. These cannot 0.3 - - ¡ 8 153
1: be computed by RE method.
BF2 GP í8.9 34.0 22.7 i 0.40 I

- 8
.,..i
BF3 SP 15.6 34.0 22.7 0.50 0.3 -! Ip2
¡ ; To continue this comparíson further, seven types ofbase soils and three types of
... - . ... '. M' ." .., L . n..- _L.." 'u'

b~ckfiIls were selected (Table 2). WaIl height and top width were 6m and 0.5m
,respectively throughout Cumulative displacements are computed for each of the cases
 J ')

32 RETAINING STRU~ MALYSIS AND DESIGN 33

R¡IGIDRETAININGWALLSSEISMIC DIStLACEMENTS

COMP ARISON WITH FIELD PERFORMANCE ii

Table 3. Sliding, and cumulative disptaCtments and rocking degrees computed
by various ground motions. for M6.75 (10 cycles) by PRW method
A 4m higq retainingwall had rotated py 1° - 2 ° Iduring Hokkaido-Nansi-Oki
earthquake in ,1993 (Chung, 1995). The magnitude o.f this earthquake is 6.7 (9.7
cycles) and (IXh)maxis 0.2g (see al so. Prakash and Wu 19~6), Fo.r design ofwall, ah is
Displacement (cm) and rocking (')2 in 10cycles taken as 2/3 x¡(ah)max = 0.133g. Sinceno. so.il properti~s were described by Chung
Soil base'
0.144 (g) 0.256 (g) 004(g) (1995), this wall was analyzed by P R W metl;lOd fo.r sev~ral base so.ils W¡th 4> o.f 27° -
combo idth (m) 35°, but with o.l1e backfill (4) = 35°). The displaccmentsiare sho.wn in Table 5.
. I
Sliding Rock. Total Sliding Rock. Total Sliding Rock. Total
I

. ,1
BFI-BSI 2.5927 3.12 0.36 6.72 8040 1.07 19.61 14.97 1.94 35.29 Table 5. Displacements ol, a 4m high \Va11with va'JYing base soil properties in

.
HNO earthquake (Prakash and Wu 1996). ,

BF2-BS1 2.2636 3.20 0.56 9.20 8.62 1045 23.80 14.67 2.52 41.06 !
<1>' 35 34 33 32 31 i 30 29 28 27
BF3-BSl. 1.7759 4.18 1.20 16.78 8.73 2.53 35.22 14.16 4.10 57.10'
e 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.0 0.55 i 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75
BFI-BS2 2.8891 3.83 0040 8.03 10.77 1.11 22.39 18.10 2.10 40.09 y.., (kN/m') 22.16 21.72 21.31 20.93 20.57 i20.23 19.92 19.62 19.34

BF2-BS2 2.5321 4044 0.58 10044 10.82 1.47 26.21 18.49 2.55 45.19 Base width (m) I 1.9590 2.0503 2.1483 2.2523 2.3609 12.478] 2.6032 2.7348 2.8779
Cumulative I
BF3-BS2 1.9970 5.26 1.16 17.26 10.83 2.49 36.91 17.55 4.05 59.96'
Displacement (m) 0.0289 0.0323 0.0352 0.0384 0.0421 iO.0462 0.0512 0.0571 0.0637
BFI-BS3 3.1037 2.30 0.20 4.39 7.54 0.67 14.56 14.64 1.29 28.15 Cumulative 0.25
0.21 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.27 0.29 0.30
rocking degree I
;
0.26
'j BF2-BS3 2.7266 2.46 0.28 5.39 7.79 0.89 17.11 14.33 1.65 31.61 I
cumulative di,p. 0.46 0.55 0.60 II 0.66 0.73 0.82 0.91
. (') 0.41 0.50
BF3-BS3 2.1572 3.07 0.56 8.93 7.88 1.48 23.38 13.68 2.59 40.80 height of wall
I
BFI-BS4 3.3338 2.97 0.23 5.38 9.69 0.74 17.44 J8.14 . 1.40 32.80
Since the so.ils were saturated, an allo.wance for this Was made in this analysis. The
BF2-BS4 2.9350 3.29 0.32 6.64 9.88 0.98 20.14 17.74 1.77 36.28 wall in HNO e8rthquake had rotatio.n by 1° to 2 °. Since fue walls actually experiences
sliding and ro.tatio.n,
, the ro.tatio.n is co.mputed '1based o.n cubulative displacement (Table
BF3-BS4 2.F88 3.96 0.62 10.45 9.74 1.58 26.29 16.81 2.75 45.61
5). The co.mputed ro.tatio.nis o.fthe o.rder 0.41° to.0.91°1 .
I
BFI-BS5 3.5812 4.45 0.30 7.59 13.20 0.90 22.62 23.99 1.64 41.16
This methqd is, therefore, capable o.fpredicting the o.rder o.fdisplacement o.factual
BF2-BS5 3.1591 4.88 0.42 9.28 13.34 1.17 25.59 23.61 2.07 45.29 walls during real earthquakes. Richards and Elms' (l97~) metho.d canoot be extended
to.perfo.rm analysis
, o.fwall with o.therthan the parameters
I used in their analysis.
BF3-BS5 2.5134 5.41 0.79 13.68 12.96 1.86 32.44 22.25 3.20 55.76'
i
BFI-BS6 4.4515 10.19 0.44 14.80 25.26 1.12 36.99 43.93 1.95 64.35' PERMISSIBLEAND FAILUREDISPLACEMENT :
I
1.39 38.92 42.21 2.41 67.45'
i
BF2-BS6 3.9476 10.41 0.59 16.59 24.36 Permissible Displacement
BF3-BS6 3.1627 10.32 0.97 20.84 22.81 2.12 45.01 38.10 3.56 75.38' i
There are no. guide lines o.n the permissible displacerpents o.fwall in the field. Free
BFI-BS7 3.8481 3.99 0.21 6.19 10.65 0.60 16.93 19.43 LlO 30.95 standing retaining walls are used as wing walls alo.ng Ihe spillway structures and as
retaining structures alo.ng highways. The magnitude o.f displacements o.f free standing
BF2-BS7 3.4010 4.06 0.29 6.99 10.59 0.77 18.66 18.73 1.36 32.97
retaining walls that may be to.lerated depends o.n a nurrlber o.f facto.rs, ego :
BF3-BS7 2.4126 4.23 0.49 9.36 10.09 1.18 22.45 17.18 2.02 38.33 I
( i). 15 it eco.no.mical to. design for a certain disp1acement?
1 Base widths are determined based on RE method
2 Displacements are computed by PRW method.
, Too large; represent failure.
 ..
-) )
I
34 RETAINING STRUcruRES ANALYSIS AND D~I<:lt RIGID iliAINING WALLS SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTS ~5
i

(iiJ. How will the possible displacement affect nearby structutet8'lld !'uildings? CONCLUSIONS . J

. I
! (iii). How much displacement c.an be tolerated before reconstruction of the 1. ;In this analysis, at M6.7S (lO cycles), the total displacements computed by PRJff
retaining wall? method are generally larger than thepermissible displacement used in RE'~
method. i ':
I Last b\!t not the least is the factor of"psychologicaf' effect of a wall displacement. , !
A. wall th~ is sloping away from the fill after an earthquake may perhaps pose no 2. Only sliding displacements by the Pll.Wmethod are close to thepermissiblJ
dánger, but it may be perceived to have failed. djsplacement
ofRE's methodforM6.7S.
,
. I
'
: I
In the case offree standing retaining walls there are number ofmethods that may 3. The differences in displacements by the two methods are due to the fact that RE ,}
b~ used to define the permissible displacement, such as: method neglects rocking motion.
I
I
, ' ¡
1. A permissible displacement that is related to the wall heightand level of 4. The displacements,induced by rotation are comparable in most cases to the.sliding
horizontal acceleration. The displacement could be defined as a certain displacements. In several walls, ego BF3-BS4, the displacement in rotation is irl
percentage of the wall height. factlargerthanthatinsliding. ¡ !

2. A requiren¡ent such that a wall is not allowed to slope forward. In that case the I

horizontal distance from the toe ofthe wall to the top front ofthe wall is the 5. More studies are neededto define: a) permissibleand b) failuredisplacements.i
permissible disph(cement. A solution would be to slant the wall en the backfill ¡ ;
,
¡. I
I
in the first instance. REFERENCES ' i,
3. Stabilityand settlement requirements because of nearby structures. This has to : I

be analyzed and determined in each case.
:4. Subjective judgement ofthe engineer.
F~ilurc:(Displacement
I ;A 4m high masonry retaining wall with base soil as gravel and sand experienced
complete failure during the Kobe earthquake (M=7.2, exlunIX = 0.5) of January 17, 1995
on the JR Tohkaido line (Tateyama, el al: 1995). The equivalent number of cycles for
M=7.2 at 0.6Sexlunox (exh= 0.33) is 13(Seed el al. 1983).No details ofthe section and
s6iÍ properties except a mention of alluvial fan deposit consisting of mainly gravel and
s~rtd are listed. Therefo~e, several analyses were performed based on assumed data
(Prakash and Wu 1996): and it was concluded that a displacement exceeding 10%
(40cm) 6f the wall height may be considered as failure condition. This is a first
nbcornmendation in print 'on this subject. Eurocode 8 (1994) recornmends permissible
displacement as300x ex(mm) ie IScm (for ex=O.S,maximum design acceleration). This
wall is considered to have failed based on the Eurocode 8 recornmendation and the
r~sult computed by PR W method.
, . More analyses and performancestudies on the walls are needed before unified
recommendations on ( i) acceptable displacement and (ii) failure displacements are
adopted. ' 7, July, pp. 915-931
Applied Technology Council, (1978), "Telllative Provisions far the Development oy
Seismic RegulaliOlIs for Building", Prcipared by Applied Technology Council~
Associated with'the structure Engineers lAssociation of CA. i
Chung, R.M. (1995) tHokkaido Earthqu~e Reconnaissapce Report" ,Earlhquakt
Spectra, Supplement to Vol. II April. ; i
EUROCODE 8 (EUROPEAN PRESTANDARD, 1994) "Design Provisions fo~
Earthquake Resistartce ofStructures- par! 5: Foundations, Retaining Structures an4
GeotechnicalAspects"The Cornmissio~ofthe EuropeanCornm~ities. ¡
Franklin, A. G., and !Chang,F. K., (1977), "Earthquake Resistance of Earth and
Rockfill Dams;Report 5, Permanent [jisplacements of Ear:thEmbankmentsb~
Newmark SlidirigBlock Analysis",U,Sr Army Engineer WaterwaysExperimeo,t
Station, Soils and ~avementsLaboratOl.y,Vicksburg,Miss.,pp. 1-38 ¡
Nadim, F. (1980), l'Tilting and Sliding of Gravity Relaining Walls During
Earthquakes", M~ter's Thesis, Department ofCivil Engineering, M. 1. T;,
Cambridge,Mass. ; i . i
Nadim,F., (1982),;'ANumericalModelfor,"Eva/uation ofSeismic BehaviQrofGravi~
Retaining Walls", ScD Thesis, Dep!¡rtment of Civil Engineering, M.I.T!,
Cambridge, Mass.. . ! '
Nadim, F. and Whitm~, R. V., (1983), "Se/smica1ly Induced Movement ofRetaininf
Walls", Journal ofthe Geotechnical En'gineering Division, ASCE, Vol. 109, N~.
¡. . i
Nadim, F. and Whitman, R. V., (1984), 1'Coupled Sliding and Tilting of Gravit}.
Retaining Walls During Earthquakes", Pioceedings ofthe Eighth World Conferenc!:I
on Earthquake Engineering, July 21-28, San Francisco, CA, Vol. III, pp. 477-48~.
iI
I
i
i
 ') -') ,

36 RETAINING sTItl1CtuRF!s ANALYSIS AND DESIGN RIGID RETAINING WALLS SEISMIC DISPLACEMENTS 37

Newmark, N. M. (1965), "Effects ofEarthquakes on Darns and Embankments", The Vucetic, M. and Dobry, R., (1991), "Effect of Soil P'lasticity on Cyclic Response" ,

lnstitution of Civil Engineers, The Fifth Rankine Lecture, Ocotechnique, Vol. 15, Journal ofGeotechnical Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 117, No. 1, January, pp. 89-107. !
No.2, January, .1965, pp.137-161. Wong, C. P., (1982) "Seismic Analysis ans,lmproved Seismic Design Procedure for
Prakash, S. (1981), "Soil Dynamics" McORA W-HILL Book Co., New York, N.Y., Gravity Rétaining Walls", M.S. Thesis Dept. of Civil Engineering., M.I.T.,
Reprint, Sharnsher Prakash Fouhaation, Rolla MO. Cambridge~ Mass. ~

Prakash, S.,Wu, Y. and Rafnsson, E. A., (1995, a), "On Seismic Design Displacements
of Rigid Retaining Walls", Proc. Third lntemational Confcrcnce on Recent NOTATIONS
Advances in Oeotechnical Engineeringand Soil Dynarnics, STo Louis Vol. IlI, pp.
1183-1192. A peak horizontal ground acceleration coeffidient
Prakash, S.,Wu, Y. and Rafnsson, E. A., (1995, b), "Displacement Based Aseismic A. seismic coefficient representing the effecti~e peak acceleration
Design Charts For Rigid Walls", Sharnsher Prakash Foundation, Rolla MO. Av seismic coefficient representihg the ertective peak velocity-related
Prakash, S. and Wu, Y., (1996), " Displacement of Rigid Retaining Walls During ad:eleration '1
Earthquakes",I1th World Conference on Earthquake Engincering, June, 23-28 B base width ¡
(under print). BF backfill
Prakash, S., Wu, Y. and Rafnsson, E. A., (1996), "DDRW-l - Soft Ware to Compute BS base soil
Dynarnic Displaccments ofRigid Retaining Walls" Sharnsher Prakash Fow1dation, e cohesion
August. D cornputed dísplacement
Rafnsson, EA (1991), "Displacement Based Design of Rigid Retaining Walls d pcrmíssible displacement
Subjected to Dynamic Loads Considering Soil Nonlinearity", Ph.D. Thesis, f dominant frequency of ground motíon
University ofMissouri-Rolla, USA. fl fundamental frequency of backfill
Rafnsson, E.A. and Prakash, S., (1991), "Stiffness and Damping Pararneters for g gr~vitational acceleration
Dynarnic Analysis ofRetaining Walls", Proc. Second lntemational Conference on Omax maximum shear mudulus
Recept Advances in Oeotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynarnics, Vol. H Hbight of wall
1Il, pp. 1943-1952. N cdefficient of limiting wall acceleration .
Rafnsson E. A. and Prakash, S., (1994), :'Displacement Based Aseismic Design of N,liding. hbrizontal ground acceleration coefficient! initiating plastic sliding
Retaining Walls", Proc. XIII lnter. Conf. On SMFE, New Delhi, Vol 3, pp. 1029~ N'il' horizontal ground acceleration' coefficient[ initiating plastic rocking
1032. V, shear velocity i
Richards, R. and Elms, D. O., (1979), "Seismic Behavior ofOravity Retaining Walls V peak earthquake velocity :

", Journal ofthe Geotechnical Engineering Division, ASCE, Vol. 105, No. OT4, IXh coefficient of cut off acceleration I
April, pp. 449-464. Yd dry dcnsity "
Seed, H.B. and Idriss, 1. M. (1970), "Soil Moduli and Darnping Factors for Dynamic o wall-soil friction angle
Response Analysis", Report No. EERC 70-10, Earthquake Engineering Research v poisson's ratio
Center, December, pp .1-40. <1> fríction angle
Seed, H.B. Idriss, I.M. and Arango, l., (1983), "Evaluation ofLiquefaction Potential
Using Field Performance Data", Journal ofGeotechnical Engineering, Vol. 109,
No. 3, March, pp. 458-482.
Seed, H.B., Wong, R.T., Idriss, I.M. and Tokimatsu, K., (1986), "Moduli and Darnping
Factors for Dynamic Analysis of Cohesionless Soils", Journal of Geotechnical
Engineering, Vol. 112, No. 11, November, pp. 1016-1032.
Tateyarna, M., Tatsuoka, F., Koseki, J. and Horii, K., (1995), "Damagc to Soil
Retaining Walls for Railway Embankments During the Oreat Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake, January 17, 1995", Proc. First lntemational Conferencc on Earthquake
Oeotechnical Engineering, Tokyo, 14-16 Nov, pp49-54.
 ') )
LARGE GRAVITY WALLS ROTATION h9
j
,
retaining walls by Richards and Elms (1979). The Richards ánd Elms approach follow~
the work of Franklinand Chang (1977), ~ho had systematically integratcd a large
datilbase.ofearthquake records using the Newmark approach as a function oflhe ratio
of the yield (or threshold) lateral acceleration to the peak value. The earthquake records
were scaled to a peak acceleration ofO.5g and peak velocity of30 in/sec: :
I
The new design approach "{as based on the view that it would be uneconomic
to design walls which were so rnassive that *0 movement took place under earthquake
loading, but that a realistic assessment could be made ofthe likely movement for walls
ROT ATION OF LARGE GRA VITY W ALLS ON RIGID FOUNDA TIONS with threshold accelerations slightly less than ~he peak by using an envelope relationship
UNDER SEISMIC LOADlNG to the integrated earthquake records. Their proposed relationship for walls in slidiryg
was given as:' !
R. S. Steedmanl and X. Zeng2
( in ) (1)
d = 0.087 :2 (;)-4 j
,I !I
Abstraet where V is the design earthquake peak veloc\ty in in/sec, N is the threshold accderati~n
for sliding and A is the peak lateral ground adeeleration (ft/sec2). At high values ofN/ A,
A pseudo-static model is developed for the prediction of permanent residual tbis relationship provides a reasonable upp~r bound to the actual reeords. At IONvalues
displaeement ofmonolithic retaining walls in rocking. The model follows a Newmark ofN/ A, however, Equation (1) overpredicts the likely sliding displaeement significantly.
approach, and is validated by comparison with experimental data of the behaviour of a ,1 I
larg~gravity wall subject to earthquake shaking. The experimental data show that However, it i~ clear that such ac~lculation is sensitive to a number of kh
roeking of retaining walls comprises two cOmponents,an elastic recoverable element and parameters in the ealculation
, of the thresnold
, acceleration and in the "nature of the
a permanent or residual component. The rocking model showed good agreetnent with earthquake record.Whitman and Liao (198~) developed this approaeh fu~her, building
the ¡obseryed data, matching the total displacement closely after a series of five on the work canied out at MIT, by analysing a selection of fourteen earthquakc reeor~s
ea~hquakes. Comparison irith conventional design approaches suggests that there is (twelve [¡-omearthqualr;:eswith magnitudes ~etween 6.3 and 6.7 and two larger) takihg
op¡:iortunity to reguce conservatism in the design of gravity walls prone to rocking by into aeeount the effects of orientation, vert¡iealmotion and site effeets where possib!e.
usiriga mechanism-specific !nodel for the wall behaviour, particularly where the nature A simple expression was first derived for the mean displacement as a function ofN/:I\,
of the earthquake input motion can be defined. analagous to Equation (1), to match the re~ults ofFra¡¡klin and Chang : .
! I.
Int~oQuction ¡JI
!.
, ' d= 37 V2 e -9.4 A:
A
( in ) [
'
(2)
'
[ The use ofpseudo-static methods for the prediction ofthe sliding displaeement
of~avity retaini¿g walls is well established and widely used in the design of sueh . I
structures.
, , In bis Rankine Lecture Newmark (1965) noted that the slip displaeement of This expression then formed the basis for a statistieal analysis of the likely sources lof
a block on aplane subjected to lateral accelerations could be calculated by integrating error, leading to an altemative recommend~d design line based on a safety faGtor of4,
the 'relative velocit)rofthe block and the plane, having first defined a yield acceleration. equivalentto a probabilityof non-exceedailcein excess of 95% : iI
Neivmark had in mind mod~lling the behaviour of earth dams or embankments but this I
appr6ach was subsequently extended to form the basis of a design approaeh for gravity NI' dA ¡
!i . . - = 0.66 - - In -
"
. , A 9.4 V2 (3~
---~---------------------------------------
I qireetor of Engineering,' Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners Ltd, Earley House, London suitable for most (larger) levels of ground acceleration. Consistent with th¡: appr01ich
Road, Reading RG6 IBL, UK used to derive this expression, N is used here as the expected or average threshold
2 A~sistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Kentucky,
Lexington, Kentucky

38
. ¡,