Behaviors of Several Types of Model Retaining Walls Subjected to Irregular Excitation

In order to establish practical design procedures to evaluate seismic stability of different types of retaining walls against high seismic loads, a series of shaking table tests were conducted with irregular excitation on retaining wall models consisting of six different types. Reinforced-soil retaining wall models with a rigid full-height facing exhibited a ductile behavior, when compared with conventional type retaining wall models such as gravity, leaning and cantilever-types. When the conventional type wall started to tilt, the subsoil reaction force at the toe of wall suddenly decreased due to the loss of bearing capacity. On the other hand, under similar conditions, the tensile force in the reinforcement of reinforced-soil walls could be mobilized effectively to resist overturning.