Seismic internal stability analysis of waterfront reinforced-soil wall using pseudo-static approach

Abstract Analysis and design techniques for reinforced-soil wall situated at the waterfront and subjected to the earthquake forces are described in this paper. Pseudo-static approach is used for seismic forces in conjunction with the horizontal slice method. The effects of seismic shaking of water on the backfill side (inside the backfill grains) and water on outboard side of the waterfront reinforced-soil wall are considered in the analysis. Two types of failure surfaces—linear and polylinear are adopted and the results are presented in graphical form for typical practical ranges of input parameters which can be used by the design practitioners. Requirement of the geosynthetic reinforcement increases with increase in seismic activity and hydrodynamic forces. On comparing the present results with an existing methodology but for dry backfill case it is observed that the present results provide an economical and safe design for waterfront reinforced-soil wall.