Author(s)

E. Cascone & M. Maugeri

Abstract

The paper presents some preliminary results of an experimental program on the seismic behaviour of retaining walls, in progress at the University of Catania. Shaking table tests on small gravity walls retaining dry cohesionless soil subjected to simple armonic ground motion have been performed and the behaviour of the soil-wall system has been observed. Input acceleration, base and top wall acceleration and backfill soil acceleration have been recorded and displacement time histories have been obtained by numerical integration. 1 Introduction Seismic design of retaining walls is traditionally based on the Mononobe-Okabe method of analysis. This method is an extension of the classical wedge theory in which both vertical and horizontal inertial forces are introduced in order to take into account the effect of earthquake shaking on the thrust acting on the wall

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