Post-Earthquake Emergency Safety Assessment of Road Retaining Wall

The retaining wall is an important part of the transportation system. Once it gets damaged in an earthquake, it not only creates huge direct economic loss, but also creates difficulties to the rescue work. On 12 May 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake occurred in WenChuan of Sichuan province; destroyed many of the retaining walls existed. Therefore, the research on emergency assessment of the retaining wall damaged in earthquake has practical significance to the structure seismic performance evaluation and the earthquake emergency. In this paper, the key issues associated with post-earthquake emergency inspections of retaining walls are presented, such as the forms of retaining wall damage, the damage features under earthquake and the influence factors. Safety criteria are established and correlations of such criteria with various damage states are given. This paper presents the methods followed in the evaluation process, highlights the items for evaluation and intends to provide technical references for the post-earthquake disease prevention, diagnosis and disease treatment.