Seismic interaction of concrete cantilever retaining wall and backfill considering hydrodynamic pore water pressure

• Published in: European physical journal plus Vol. 139; no. 8; p. 716
• Main Authors: Khajehdezfuly, Amin, Poorveis, Davood, Khademalrasoul, Abdolghafour, Elahi, Iman
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 10.08.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Applied and Technical Physics; Atomic; Backfill; Bending moments; Cantilevers; Cohesionless soils; Complex Systems; Concrete; Condensed Matter Physics; Earth pressure; Earthquakes; Lateral pressure; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Mathematical models; Molecular; Numerical models; Optical and Plasma Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Pore water; Pore water pressure; Pressure distribution; Regular Article; Retaining walls; Sandy soils; Seismic activity; Seismic response; Soil investigations; Soil water; Soil-structure interaction; Strain hardening; Theoretical; Water pressure
• ISSN: 2190-5444; 2190-5444
• DOI: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05495-3

This paper investigates excessive dynamic lateral earth pressures on retaining structures due to hydrodynamic pore water pressure caused by earthquakes considering nonlinear soil-structure interaction. The seismic-induced pore water pressure in saturated backfill on retaining walls is significantly influenced by soil characteristics, a factor often neglected in conventional methods. Accordingly, a nonlinear numerical model of a cantilever retaining wall and backfill was developed using the OPENSEES framework, considering cohesive and cohesionless soils with three different relative densities. Moreover, the earthquake-induced excess pore water pressure was also obtained from the model developed in this study. The model's validity was confirmed by comparing its results with experimental data obtained from literature. A parametric study was performed to compare the distributions of hydrodynamic pore water pressure, total lateral earth pressure, and bending moments along the retaining wall height with those of the conventional methods. The results obtained from this study highlight the necessity of considering dynamic soil-retaining wall interaction in the numerical model for calculating realistic lateral pressure in the saturated backfills. It was shown that conventional methods overestimate and underestimate excess pore water pressures for clayey and sandy soils, respectively.