Seismic Stability of Gravity Retaining Structures by Pseudo-Dynamic Method

Abstract

An analytical expression of gravity retaining wall's seismic stability against sliding and overturning is proposed in this paper. The derivation, aiming at the cohesionless soil with inclined backfill surface and nonvertical wall back, is based on the limit equilibrium analysis and the pseudo-dynamic method. The variations of the sliding and overturning stability safe factors with the horizontal seismic acceleration are investigated for different seismic amplification factors, soil friction angles, wall friction angles, vertical seismic acceleration coefficients, wall back inclination angles and backfill surface inclination angles. The results indicate that the soil friction and the horizontal seismic action impact the seismic stability significantly. The increase of vertical earthquake action changes the curvature of stability factor curves. The wall friction and the back inclination strengthen the gravity retaining wall's resistance to sliding and overturning failure while the backfill surface inclination plays a negative role in the seismic stability. It is also found that the seismic stability safe factors calculated by the proposed method are larger but more reasonable than that by the Mononobe-Okabe method.2