Seismic Displacement Criterion for Soil Retaining Walls Based on Soil Strength Mobilization

Abstract

This paper presents a seismic displacement criterion for conventional soil retaining walls based on the observations of a series of shaking table tests and seismic displacement analysis using Newmark’s sliding-block theory taking into account internal friction angle mobilization along the potential failure line in the backfill. A novel approach that relates the displacement of the wall and the mobilized friction angle along the shear band in the backfill is also proposed. A range of horizontal displacement-to-wall height ratios