Stability of retaining walls under sismic loading

Working Group
Ivo BellezzaEvelina Fratalocchi, Erio Pasqualini
 
 
Activity
This topic deals with the stability of gravity retaining walls, with special attention to port facilities infrastructures such as caisson quay walls, which have been seriously damaged by recent earthquakes. Considering that the pseudo-static approach is still the most frequently adopted in the design practice, the different approaches to quantify the earth and water thrusts are analyzed, also in light of the national building code. The results of the pseudo-static approach are compared with more sophisticated approaches such as the pseudo-dynamic and the complete dynamic methods, which provide also an estimate of earthquake-induced displacements.