Pseudo-dynamic analysis of reinforced soil wall subjected to oblique displacement

Abstract

Numerous pseudo-static methods are available for assessing the seismic stability of reinforced soil walls. These methods consider the dynamic effects of earthquake loading by adding a pseudo-static seismic earth pressure component to the static earth pressure force; they do not consider the effects of time or of body waves travelling through the wall. Hence these approaches provide an approximate and conservative solution. This paper considers an alternative pseudo-dynamic method proposed by Steedman and Zeng, and further modified by Choudhury and Nimbalkar, that considers the above effects. Most of the available methods for analysing the stability of reinforced soil walls consider only the axial resistance of the reinforcement to pullout. However, the failure surface in a reinforced soil structure nearly always intersects the reinforcement layers obliquely, and thus subjects the reinforcement to an oblique force imposed by the sliding mass of soil. The seismic stability of reinforced soil walls is investigated, considering the kinematics of this oblique pull. A parametric study quantifies the effects of different soil-wall parameters on the factor of safety of a reinforced soil wall subjected to pseudo-dynamic seismic forces, considering the increase in tension due to oblique pull or displacement.