Seismically Induced Movement of Retaining Walls

Abstract

In recent years, new seismic design methods for gravity retaining walls, based on the earthquake‐induced permanent displacement of the wall, have been proposed. These methods generally ignore the effects of ground motion amplification in the backfill on the seismic behavior of the wall. In the present paper, results obtained with a finite element model capable of taking into account the amplification of ground motion in the backfill, while computing permanent distortions, are presented. Implications of these results for design are also considered.