Seismic Response of Geocell Retaining Walls Through Shaking Table Tests

Abstract

Performance of geocell retaining walls under seismic shaking conditions is studied in this paper. Shaking table tests on geocell retaining walls subjected to ground shaking conditions of different accelerations and frequencies are discussed. Retaining wall models of 600 mm height were constructed using a sand backfill with layers of geocells stacked one above the other to form the facing. Geocells in these tests were constructed using planar geonets by stitching them into a honeycomb network. Material used for making geocells, number of geocells in each layer, slope of the facing and infill material of geocells were varied in different tests. These geocell retaining walls were subjected to 100 cycles of sinusoidal base shaking at accelerations ranging between 0.2 and 0.3 g and frequency range of 1-7 Hz. Response of retaining walls was monitored in terms of acceleration amplifications and wall deformations at different elevations. It was observed that all geocell retaining walls were extremely strong to seismic shaking. Acceleration amplifications and displacements increased with increase in base acceleration or shaking frequency. It was observed that the detrimental effect of increasing ground motion parameters on the wall response was more significant than the beneficial effect of improvement in geocell parameters.

Dynamic behavior of gravity segmental retaining walls

“…Mazni [10] performed two models of SRW in the Pollack Periodica • An International Journal for Engineering and Information Sciences laboratory to study the patterns of slope failures, the findings showing different failure surfaces in comparison to the Rankine theory. Latha and Manju [11] conducted numerous laboratory tests on the geocell retaining walls using the shaking table. The researchers found that the increase of the shaking table frequency increases the horizontal displacements of the retaining walls, as well as the acceleration contributing to the increase of the geocell retaining wall deformation.…”

Cyclic and post-cyclic geocell pullout behavior in cohesionless soil

“…Moreover, the presence of geocells limited 3 plastic deformation under cyclic loading more than a similar geocell monotonic loading. Latha and Manju [15] assessed the seismic behavior of physically modeled geocell retaining walls. They found that the increase in seismic loading parameters showed more effect on the retaining wall behavior than the increase in geocell layer parameters.…”

Soil Zonation and The Shaking Table Test of The Embankment on Clayey Soil

“…Yazdandoust (2017) conducted a recent laboratory test to assess the character of 1-g shake table tests. Many researchers also performed a shake table test to study the seismic responses of different soil structures on soft soil (Beskhyroun et al, 2011;Edinçliler & Toksoy, 2017;Hamayoon et al, 2016;Hassan & Pal, 2018;Helwany et al, 2017;Madhavi Latha & Manju, 2016).…”