NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON RETAINING WALL SUBJECTED TO STATIC LOADS AND VIBRATIONS

Abstract

In the present study, response analysis of retaining wall subjected to static and dynamic load is carried in a finite element numerical program. The well-graded, poorly graded, and clayey soil is taken in backfill to examine the backfill-retaining wall interface system. The lateral deformation at the top of the retaining wall with soil having varied densities, moduli of elasticity, and angle of internal friction are observed as 9 mm, 77 mm, and 71 mm for well-graded, poorly graded, and clayey soil respectively. For stabilization purpose, steel strips and geogrid reinforcements are introduced into the soil. In total 7 layers of steel strips and geogrids are provided separately to the system having 700 mm edge-to-edge vertical spacing. Further, frequency response is investigated on the retaining wall with a frequency sweep of 1-1000 Hz. The dynamic analysis on the retaining wall is conducted to calculate the resonant frequency by observing 6 variants of mode shapes with their respective mode frequencies. The results of the dynamic analysis show that the concrete wall retaining well-graded soil attained resonance condition at a higher frequency and thereby, stiffer than the other two considered conditions of the wall-backfill system. The results obtained in the present study are significantly improved over the results in the available literature.