Seismic Deformation of Bar Mat Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls. II: A Multiblock Model

Abstract

A relatively simple rigid plastic multiblock computational model has been developed to predict the permanent seismic displacement of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls. The model formulation was based on many observations made from a series of centrifuge tests carried out on many different configurations of MSE walls. The proposed model is similar to the sliding block method of Newmark. The approach accounted for the variation in acceleration within the backfill and the nonuniform nature of the permanent wall face deformation. The predictive capability of the proposed model has been verified using centrifuge test results obtained for four MSE walls each subjected to three earthquake excitations with strength varying between 0.48 and