Seismic Stability of a Broken-Back Retaining Wall Using Adaptive Collapse Mechanism
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 20, Issue 9
Abstract
In this study, the pertinence of a broken-back retaining wall with bilinear backface in mitigating the effect of earthquake is demonstrated using the method of stress characteristics coupled with the pseudodynamic approach. Unlike the available studies reported in the literature considering the limit equilibrium or the limit analysis method, a priori failure mechanism is not assumed in this analysis, and the failure mechanism automatically gets evolved from the solution of stress characteristic equations. The versatility of the solution procedure is explored with the available seismic methods such as pseudostatic, original pseudodynamic, and modified pseudodynamic approaches. The effect of various parameters such as inclination and roughness of the wall, angle of internal friction of the backfill soil, damping of the soil, and phase difference of seismic waves on the active thrust is determined in the analysis. The stability analysis of the wall is performed using the classical Newmark's sliding block approach. The present results are compared with the available data reported in the literature. The seismic stability factors are found to be critical while considering the dynamic properties of the soil and the wall. The efficacy of employing the broken-back geometry over the conventional vertical retaining wall is presented for different wall configurations.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- ah, av
- horizontal and vertical earthquake accelerations;
- B, H
- width and height of the wall;
- Ds, Dw
- constant damping ratio of soil and wall;
- FHs
- total horizontal lateral thrust on the wall due to soil;
- FSO-Conv
- factor of safety against overturning using the conventional approach;
- FSO-Mod
- factor of safety against overturning using the modified approach;
- FSS
- factor of safety against sliding;
- g
- acceleration due to gravity;
- H1, H2
- height of the upper and lower parts of the wall;
- Kaq1, Kaq2
- active earth pressure coefficients for the upper and lower parts of the wall due to surcharge;
- Kaγ1, Kaγ2
- active earth pressure coefficients for the upper and lower parts of the wall due to the unit weight of soil;
- kh, kv
- horizontal and vertical earthquake acceleration coefficients;
- MNs
- net backfill moment of all forces acting on the wall due to soil only;
- MOs, MRs
- resultant overturning and resisting moment due to backfill soil;
- MOw, MRw
- resultant overturning and resisting moment due to the wall;
- Pae1, Pae2
- thrusts acting on the upper and lower parts of the wall due to surcharge and unit weight of soil;
- Paq1, Paq2
- active thrusts acting on the upper and lower parts of the wall due to surcharge;
- QHw, QVw
- horizontal and vertical inertial forces in the wall;
- q
- uniformly distributed surcharge;
- T
- period of lateral shaking;
- t
- time;
- Vps, Vss
- primary and shear wave velocities in soil;
- Vpw, Vsw
- primary and shear wave velocities in the wall;
- Ww
- weight of the wall;
- x, y
- axes in the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system;
- β1, β2
- inclination angle for the upper and lower parts of the wall;
- δ1, δ2
- wall roughness at the upper and lower parts of the wall;
- ϕ
- angle of internal friction of the soil;
- γ, γc
- unit weight of soil and wall material;
- μw
- coefficient of base friction for wall;
- σ
- distance on the Mohr stress diagram, between the center of the Mohr circle and a point where Coulomb's linear failure envelope intersects the σ-axis;
- θ
- angle made by σ1 in a counterclockwise sense with the positive x-axis;
- θg
- magnitude of θ along the ground surface;
- θw1, θw2
- magnitude of θ along the upper and lower parts of the wall; and
- ω
- angular frequency.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 20 • Issue 9 • September 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 3, 2020
Accepted: Apr 22, 2020
Published online: Jun 30, 2020
Published in print: Sep 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Nov 30, 2020
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