Application of admissible stress fields for computation of passive seismic force in retaining walls

Abstract

In this paper, the lower-bound techniques of limit analysis are applied to obtain lateral earth pressures of rigid retaining walls subjected to earthquake forces. The well-known Mononobe-Okabe analysis is a direct modification of the coulomb wedge analysis. In this analysis, the earthquake effects are replaced by a quasi-static inertia force whose magnitude is computed on the basis of the seismic coefficient concept. This paper is describing an analytical solution to investigate the lateral force affect on retaining walls, using mathematical relations based on a lower bound limit analysis method. The lower bound of the exact solution can be obtained by use of different admissible stress fields in different regions of the media divided by stress discontinuity surfaces. This process is included in calculation of the direction and magnitude of passive lateral earth pressure. Numerical results of the proposed algorithm are presented in some practical dimensionless graphs.

Stability of Reinforced Retaining Wall under Seismic Loads

“…The axial stress of the anchor is greatly increased by seismic excitation, and the increment is mainly induced within the excitation period of great acceleration amplitude, evaluation of the effect of earthquake frequency content on seismic behavior of cantilever retaining wall including soil-structure interaction [28,29]. By taking the failure surface as a plane, the analytical expression for the critical angle of the failure surface, earthquake-induced displacements of gravity retaining walls and anchor-reinforced slopes are also derived [30,31].…”

Evaluation of the static and seismic active lateral earth pressure for c-f soils by the ZEL method

“…Rankin and Coulomb are the common methods. Stress characteristics [1,2] or slip lines method, limit analysis method [3,4], Rankine's conjugate stress concept [5], and slice analysis method [6] are also used to evaluate the lateral earth pressure. Zero Extension Lines (ZEL) method is one of the methods that is capable of analyzing the stability of retaining walls under general conditions in static and seismic conditions.…”