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DISPLACEMENT BASED SEISMIC DESIGN OF RETAINING WALLS

Shamsher Prakash1, Vijay K. Puri2 and Sanjeev Kumar3

ABSTRACT

The safe design of retaining walls requires adequate factor of safety against sliding, overturning and bearing
capacity failure. The lateral earth pressures are generally calculated by using Coulombs or Rankines
method for the static case and Mononobe-Okabes method for the seismic case. In addition, the
displacement of the retaining wall becomes another important consideration in earthquake prone areas as
retaining wall have been observed to fail by displacement away from the backfill in several past
earthquakes. The paper presents a simple but realistic 2-D model to calculate displacement of rigid retaining
walls. The model accounts non-linear soil behavior by incorporating strain dependent stiffness and damping
in soil. This model has been used to calculate the displacement of a typical retaining wall for several
combinations of backfill and foundation soil conditions for Northridge and Loma-Prieta
earthquakes.

Keywords: Walls, Retaining, Design, Seismic, Displacement.

INTRODUCTION

There are two approaches for design of retaining walls for earthquake loading, namely (a) the pseudo-static
approach and (b) the displacement approach. The pseudo-static approach is a simple method of calculating
the safety of the retaining wall. The lateral earth pressure for static case is commonly determined using
either Rankines or Coulombs method. The earthquake induced forces on the retaining wall are generally
computed using the modified Coulombs approach in which the earthquake force on the backfill is replaced
by an equivalent static force. This is known as Mononobe-Okabe method. The safety factors against
overturning, sliding and bearing capacity failure are then calculated for the static as well as for the case of
earthquake loading. The design is considered safe if the safety factors satisfy the design criteria for the
safety factors.

A solution for determination of static and dynamic active earth pressure for a c- soils was developed by
Puri and Prakash (2011). The method includes the effect of cohesion in the soil, adhesion between the
retaining wall and backfill, the inclination of the backfill, horizontal and vertical seismic coefficients,
surcharge on the backfill, and the inclination of the wall face and the backfill.

1
Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology,
Rolla, MO 65401, USA, prakash@mst.edu
2
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
puri@engr.siu.edu
3
Chair and Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
62901, USA. kumars@siu.edu
II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

Although the Mononobe Okabe method has been commonly used in practice, there are questions about the
calculated values of active and passive pressures. Terzaghi (1943) had shown that the for active earth
pressure, assumption of plane failure surfaces matches with experimental observations. For the case of
passive pressure when the angle of wall friction is more than /3, the assumption of plane failure
surfaces results in an overestimation of passive pressure. Morision and Ebeling (1995), Soubra (2000) and
Kumar (2001) used curved failure surfaces in their analysis for dynamic passive pressures. Choudhury
(2002) has provided solution for passive pressure for seismic conditions for a c- soil. Gazetas et.al, (2005)
have observed that Mononobe-Okabe gives conservative estimates of active earth pressure.

Atik and Sitar (2010) conducted a series of centrifuge tests to study the seismic behavior of cantilever type
retaining walls and concluded that additional seismic earth pressureon cantilever retaining walls can be
disregarded for ground accelerations below 0.4g. They also observed that the dynamic earth pressure and
inertia force do not act simultaneously. This is a significant observation and in our opinion needs further
investigation.

Choudhury et al (2004) presented a comparison of seismic earth pressures by various methods for a typical 6
m high retaining wall (for, = 34 , c =0, = 17, = 17.3 kN/m3, h = 0.3 and v = 0.3) which is shown in
Table 1. It is observed from this table 1 that the displacement analysis results in smaller design earth
pressures compared to the pseudo-static case.

Table 1. Comparison of Seismic Earth Pressures by Different Methods (after Choudhury et al., 2004)
Methods Mononobe- Choudhury Steedman and Richards and Eurocode 8
Okabe (2002) Zeng (1990) Elms (1979) (1998)
Seismic active earth pressure (kN/m) 145.16 -- 141.24 100.92 100.92
P.O.A of active force from base (m) 2.72 -- 2.0 2.33 2.33
Seismic passive earth pressure (kN/m) 943.99 905.36 -- -- --
P.O.A of passive force from base (m) -- 1.98 -- -- --
Displacement (mm) -- -- -- 100 100
Remarks F F F D D
P.O.A. Point of Application, F Force Based (Pseudo-Static), D- Displacement Based

DISPLACEMENT OF RETAINING WALLS

Retaining walls have failed during earthquakes by sliding away from the backfill or due to
combined action of sliding and rocking displacements. Performance based design of the retaining
walls in seismic areas must account for the likely displacements, the retaining wall may
experience during an earthquake in addition to calculating the usual factors of safety against
failure in bearing capacity, sliding and overturning. An important question that comes to mind is
how much should be the permissible displacement? There is no definite answer to this question
though some guidelines given below available based on experience or judgment (Huang, 2005).

Eurocode (1994)
Permissible horizontal displacement = 300.amax (mm), amax = maximum horizontal design acceleration

AASHTO (2002)
Permissible horizontal displacement = 250.amax (mm)
II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

Wu and Prakash (1996)
Permissible horizontal displacement = 0.02H , H= height of retaining wall
Failure horizontal displacement = 0.1H

JRTRI (1996)
Permissible differential settlement = 0.1-0.2m, (damage needing minor retrofit measures)

Severe differential settlement = > 0.2m (damage needing long term retrofit measures)

It may be noted from the above that Eurocode 8 (1994) and Wu and Prakash (1996) recommend using
specified horizontal displacements of the retaining wall for evaluating its seismic performance. The
Japanese Railway Technical Research Institute (1999) suggests the use of vertical differential settlement
as the performance criterion which seems reasonable for traffic accessibility and retrofit purposes after
the earthquake.

MODEL FOR DISPLACEMENT CALCULATIONS

A realistic model for estimating the dynamic displacement must account for the combined action of
sliding and rocking vibrations and considering 1) Soil stiffness in sliding and rocking 2) Geometrical and
material damping in sliding and rocking, and 3) non-linear coupling effects for stiffness and damping.

Rafnsson and Prakash (1991) developed a model for simulating the response of rigid retaining walls
subjected to seismic loading. This model consisted of a rigid wall resting on the foundation soil and
subjected to a horizontal ground motion and analyzed the problem as a case of combined sliding and
rocking vibrations including the effect of various important parameters such as soil stiffness in sliding,
soil stiffness in rocking, geometrical damping in sliding, geometrical damping in rocking, material
damping in sliding, and material damping in rocking.

Figure: 1. Force diagram of forced vibration of rigid retaining wall with submerged pervious backfill
(Wu and Prakash, 2001)
II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

Only dry backfill was considered and seismic ground motion was represented by an equivalent sinusoidal
motion. This model was further modified to accommodate both (Fig. 1) the dry and submerged backfills
(Wu, 1999, Wu and Prakash, 2001)

Several cases of 6.0 m high retaining walls were analyzed for typical cases of foundation soil condition
varying from well graded gravel (GW) to silt (ML) and the backfill soil varying from silty gravel (GM) to
poorly graded sand (SP). Ground motions corresponding to El Centro, Loma-Prieta and Northridge
earthquakes were used in the analysis. Typical case of a reference retaining wall , 6.0 m high , with nine
different inclination angles of the wall face in contact with the backfill (0, 1.25, 2.5, 3.75, +5, -
1.25, -2.5, -3.75, and -5) subjected to Northridge earthquake is used for illustration. The negative angle
at the back of the wall is the case of the wall resting on the backfill. Figure 2 shows the cumulative
displacements of the retaining wall away from the backfill due to combined sliding and rocking effects for
= -5, 0 and +5 for a base width of 3.57 m. The foundation soil for this case was well graded sand (SW)
and the backfill consisted of submerged silt gravel (GM). It can be observed from Fig. 2 that the negative
values of result in somewhat smaller cumulative displacements compared to the case of vertical wall face
( = 0) or for positive value of within the range considered.

Another typical plot of cumulative displacement of a rigid retaining wall of 6.0 m height and having a base
width of 4.61m and subjected to Northridge earthquake motion is shown in Fig. 3. The foundation and
backfill soils in this case were silt of low compressibility and silty gravel respectively. The trend of the
results in Fig. 3 is similar that in Fig: 2.Similar results were observed for other cases (Wu, 1996).

Table 2 shows a summary of new base widths and computed displacements for various inclinations. The
computed cumulative sliding, rocking and total displacements are also shown in this table. The base
widths decreased from 3.57m to 3.38m as the inclination changed from 0 to -5, since the active earth
forces decrease with negative inclination. Therefore, the base width was somewhat smaller for a wall with
a negative inclination.

Table 2.Cumulative displacement for several angles of inclination of the back of the wall subjected to
Northridge earthquake condition (B=3.57m) (Wu, 1996)
Inclination-on Base Cumulative Displacement by Fixed Base Width (3.57m)
angle width-h Sliding Rocking Rocking Total
(degree) (m) (m) (degree) (m) (m)
+5.00 3.81 0.0820 1.31 0.1374 0.2194
+3.75 3.76 0.0820 1.30 0.1366 0.2186
+2.50 3.70 0.0815 1.30 0.1361 0.2176
+1.25 3.63 0.0808 1.29 0.1355 0.2163
0.00 3.57 0.0808 1.29 0.1347 0.2155
-1.25 3.50 0.0806 1.28 0.1338 0.2144
-2.50 3.43 0.0805 1.27 0.1329 0.2134
-3.75 3.35 0.0803 1.26 0.1320 0.2123
-5.00 3.38 0.0801 1.25 0.1311 0.2112
II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

Fig: 2. Cumulative displacements of walls (B1-F3) with different inclinations with the vertical

Fig: 3. Cumulative displacements of walls (B1-F6) with different inclinations with the vertical
II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

The angular rotation in rocking (Table 2) decreased from 1.29 (=0) to 1.25 (=-5), and the total
displacements decreased slightly from 0.2155m to 0.2112m. The cumulative displacements for these walls
will not be significantly altered by changing the inclination at the back of the wall.

For the wall built as a leaning-type rigid retaining wall with =-5 lying on the backfill, the wall experienced
a rocking movement of 1.25 during the Northridge earthquake. Therefore, when the wall was subjected to
the same earthquake event up to 3 or 4 times, the wall experienced a total rocking close to 5. At this time,
the wall may become vertical.

Further analysis was conducted for 21 backfill and foundations soil combinations for a typical reference
wall 6m high, subjected to three earthquakes. The backfill soil was varied from silty gravel to poorly graded
sand, and the foundation soil varied from well graded gravel to silt of low compressibility. The results
generally indicated that the design widths of foundations for 21 cases of backfill foundation soil
combinations used in analysis generally reduced with values of from 0 = -5. This may results in saving
of 8 -10 % in the material cost.

CONCLUSIONS

The following conclusions are drawn:

1. A realistic displacement model for rigid retaining walls under earthquake condition has been
developed.
2. This model considers non-linear soil properties and any water condition behind the wall.
3. The available information on permissible displacements of retaining walls has been summarized
but more research needed in this direction.

REFERENCES

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II International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering

May 2012, 28-30 - Taormina, Italy

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