A method for predicting the permanent displacements of embedded cantilever retaining walls under seismic loading

抄録

Prediction of the earthquake-induced permanent displacements of retaining structures represents a key step in the context of a performance-based design approach. For retaining walls with shallow foundations, this issue is usually dealt with using the well-known Newmark sliding-block method. However, several studies have shown that this method is unsuitable to provide a trustworthy prediction of the displacements experienced by the embedded cantilever retaining walls under seismic loading. To overcome this drawback, a method of practical interest is proposed in the present study for a prediction of the earthquake-induced permanent displacement of these structures. In such a method, the rotation and the associated displacement of the structure are evaluated solving a simple equation of motion when the ground acceleration exceeds a critical value. Unlike Newmark’s method, this critical value is updated during the seismic event by calculating the forces acting on the wall by a closed-form solution recently derived by the authors. To assess the predictive capability of the present method, some comparisons with well-documented case studies available in the literature are shown. The method is also simple to use and requires few conventional parameters as input data.