New Method to Compute Seismic Active Earth Pressure on Retaining Wall Considering Seismic Waves

In earthquake prone areas, calculation of seismic active earth pressure on retaining wall is very important. Analytical methods till date for computation of seismic active earth pressure do not consider the effect of Rayleigh wave though it constitutes about 67 % of the total seismic energy. In this paper a new dynamic approach is proposed by considering all possible seismic waves viz. primary, shear and Rayleigh waves for estimation of seismic active earth pressure on rigid retaining wall by satisfying all the boundary conditions. Limit equilibrium method is used for estimation of optimised seismic active earth pressure for a rigid retaining wall supporting cohesionless backfill with critical combinations of seismic accelerations. The seismic influence zone obtained in this study is about 22 and 17 % larger when compared with available pseudo-static and pseudo-dynamic methods respectively, which indicates the significant effect of Rayleigh wave. Also, there is an increase of about 14 and 6 % in seismic active earth pressure coefficient when the present results are typically compared with pseudo-static and pseudo-dynamic methods respectively. Moreover present results compare well with the available experimental results. Present results are more critical for the design estimation of seismic active earth pressure by considering all major seismic waves as proposed in the new dynamic approach. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.