The Constructor

Seismic Design of Earth-Retaining Structures and Foundations

Civil Engineering

Reading time: 1 minute

DESIGNS of retaining walls, earth dam, abutments, foundations, etc. are very important problems related to the geotechnical engineering. To minimize the devastating effect of earthquake on retaining structures, computation of earth pressures and the point of applications carries attention of the researchers. The most commonly used methods to design the retaining structures under seismic conditions are the force equilibrium based pseudo-static analysis, pseudo-dynamic analysis, displacement based sliding block methods. In the design of these retaining structures, knowledge of earth pressures under both active and passive conditions should be cleared to compute the earth forces and their point of applications. Design of earth dam under seismic condition is a challenge to the geotechnical engineers. Slope stability method is basically used for the analysis of earth dam using pseudostatic approach for seismic forces. Shallow foundations are also designed under earthquake condition by computing the bearing capacity using pseudo-static methods available in literature. This paper reviews the different methodologies available to compute the active and passive earth pressures under seismic conditions for retaining wall, design of earth dam and shallow foundations and the mitigation techniques to the earthquake hazards are also discussed.

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