introduction

• The problem of retaining soil is one the oldest in the geotechnical

engineering; some of the earliest and most fundamental principles of
soil mechanics were developed to allow rational design of retaining
walls. Many approaches to soil retention have been developed and used
successfully.

• Retaining Walls are structures used to provide stability for earth or

other material where conditions disallow the mass to assume its natural
slope. Retaining walls provide lateral support to vertical slopes of soil.
They retain soil which would otherwise collapse into a more natural
shape. The retained soil is referred to as backfill.

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 1

Classification
• In the recent years, the development of metallic, polymer, and
geotextile reinforcement has led to the development of many
innovative types of mechanically stabilized earth retention system.

• Retaining walls are often classified in terms of their relative mass,

flexibility, and anchorage condition. The common types are:

a) Gravity Retaining wall

b) Cantilever Retaining wall

c) Reinforced Soil Retaining wall

d) Anchored bulkhead

e) Counter fort Retaining wall

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 2
Classification

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 3

Classification
• Gravity Retaining walls (Fig 1 a) are the oldest and simplest type of
retaining walls. The gravity wall retaining walls are thick and stiff
enough that they do not bend; their movement occurs essentially by
rigid body translation and or by rotation.

• The cantilever retaining wall as shown in Fig.1b bends as well as

translates and rotates. They rely on the flexural strength to resist lateral
earth pressures. The actual distribution of lateral earth pressure on a
cantilever wall is influenced by the relative stiffness and deformation
both the wall and the soil.

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 4

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 5
Types of Retaining wall failures
• To design retaining walls, it is necessary to know how wall can fail.
Under static condition the retaining walls are acted upon by the forces
like;
1. body forces related to mass of the wall
2. by soil pressure
3. by external forces such as those forces transmitted by braces etc.
• A properly designed retaining wall will achieve equilibrium of those
forces including shear stresses that approach the shear strength of soil.
• During earth quake, however the inertial forces and changes in the soil
strength may violate the equilibrium and cause permanent deformation
of the wall. Failure whether by sliding, tilting, bending or some other
mechanism, occurs when these permanent deformations becomes
excessive.
Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 6
Types of Retaining wall failures
• Gravity wall usually fail by rigid body mechanism such as sliding
and/or overturning or by gross instability. Sliding occurs when
horizontal force equilibrium is not maintained, that is when the lateral
pressure on the back of the wall produces a thrust that exceeds the
available sliding resistance of the base of wall.
• Overturning failure occurs, when moment equilibrium is not satisfied.
In this situation bearing failure at the base are often involved.
• In cantilever retaining wall also, the similar type of failure occurs as
that of in the gravity wall.
• In addition, the flexural failure mechanism also occurs in cantilever
wall. If bending moments required for equilibrium exceeds the flexural
strength of wall, flexural failure may occur.

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Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 8
Static Pressures on Retaining Wall
• The seismic behaviour of retaining wall depends on the total lateral
earth pressure that develops during the earth shaking. This total
pressure includes both the static gravitational pressure that exist before
earthquake occurs and the transient dynamic pressure induced by the
earthquake.
• Therefore, the static pressure on the retaining wall is of significant in
the seismic design of retaining wall .
• Even under static conditions, prediction of actual retaining wall forces
and deformations is a complicated Soil Structure Interaction problem
• Deformations are rarely considered explicitly in design – typically it is
forced based only.

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 9

Rankine’s theory
For minimum active condition, Rankine expressed the pressure at a point
on the back of a retaining wall as

For the case of the cohesionless backfill inclined at angle β with the
horizontal infinite slope solution can be used to compute Ka as:

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 10

Rankine’s theory
Under maximum passive condition, Rankines theory predicts wall
pressure given by the relation

For the case of the cohesionless backfill inclined at angle β with the
horizontal infinite slope solution can be used to compute Kp as:

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 11

Coulomb’s theoRy
For minimum active condition, Coulomb expressed the pressure at a point
on the back of a retaining wall for cohesionless soil as

where

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 12

Coulomb’s theoRy
For the maximum passive conditions in cohesionless backfill (Fig. 7)
Coulomb theory predicts a passive thrust as

where

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 13

Dynamic Response of Retaining Walls
• The dynamic response of even simplest type of retaining wall is quite
complex.
• Wall movement and pressure depends on the response of the soil
underlying the wall, the response of the backfill, the inertial and
flexural response of the wall itself, and the nature of the input motions.
• Most of the current understanding of the dynamic response of
retaining wall has come from the model test and numerical analyses.

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Dynamic Response of Retaining Walls
The tests and analyses, the majority of which involved gravity wall
indicate that :
1. Wall can move by translation and or by rotation. The relative amounts
of translation and rotation depend on the design of the wall; one or the
other may predominate for some wall, and both may occur for others.
2. Magnitude and distribution of dynamic wall pressure are influenced
by the mode of wall movement (e.g. translation, rotation about the
base, or rotation about the top).
3. Maximum soil thrust acting on the wall generally occurs when the
wall has translated or rotated towards the backfill (when the inertial
force on the wall is directed towards the backfill). The minimum soil
thrust occurs when the wall has translated or rotated away from the
backfill.
Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 15
Dynamic Response of Retaining Walls
4. The shape of the earth pressure distribution on the back of the wall
changes as the wall moves. The point of application of the soil thrust
therefore, moves up and down along the back of the wall. The
position of the soil thrust in highest when the wall moves towards the
soil and lowest when the wall moves outwards.
5. Dynamic wall pressures are influenced by the dynamic response of
the wall and backfill and can increase significantly near the natural
frequency of the wall-backfill system. Permanent wall displacement
also increases at frequency of the wall-backfill system. Dynamic
response effect can also cause deflections of different parts of the wall
to be out of phase.
6. Increased residual pressures may remain on the wall after an episode
of strong shaking has ended.
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Dynamic Response of Retaining Walls
• In summarizing, it may be seen that the damage of retaining wall under
seismic forces has been due to the increase in the pressure resulting
from the movement of the structure during earthquake.
• Therefore, separate evaluation of dynamic earth pressure and stresses
on the retaining structures should be done for retaining wall
constructed in the seismic area.

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Mononobe-okabe method
• Okabe (1926) and Mononobe and Matsuo (1929) developed the basis
of a pseudo static analysis of seismic earth pressures on retaining
structures that has become popularly known as the Mononobe-Okabe
(M-O) method.
• It is a direct extension of the static Coulomb theory to pseudostatic
conditions.
• The provision of calculation of lateral dynamic earth pressure in IS:
1893:1984 [which is in process of revision]; is in the line of the
Mononobe-Okabe method

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Dynamic earth pressure (IS1893 Part3)
Dynamic Active Earth Pressure due to Backfill

where.,

Two values shall be calculated from above equation, one for 1+αv and the
other for 1-αv and maximum of the two shall be the design values.

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 19

Dynamic earth pressure (IS1893 Part3)

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 20

Dynamic earth pressure (IS1893 Part3)
• From the total pressure computed from the relation given above
subtract the static earth pressure calculated by putting αh= αv= λ=0 in
the expression given above or from the equations available for
calculation of static earth pressure using Coulomb theory. The
remainder is the dynamic increment.
• The dynamic increment shall be considered separately in addition to
the static pressure and this will be considered to act at the mid-height
of the wall.

Seismic Design of Retaining Wall 21

Dynamic earth pressure (IS1893 Part3)
Dynamic Passive Earth Pressure due to Backfill

where.,

Two values shall be calculated from above equation, one for 1+αv and the
other for 1-αv and minimum of the two shall be the design values.

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Dynamic earth pressure (IS1893 Part3)
• The equation (19) gives the total passive pressure on the face of the
wall at the time of the base acceleration. The static passive pressure
calculated based on the Coulomb theory shall be deducted from the
total passive pressure and the remainder shall be the dynamic passive
pressure decrement.
• The point of application of the dynamic decrement is assumed to act an
elevation of 0.66h above the base of the wall.

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