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Dynamic Analysis of A Cantilever Retaining Wall Including Soil-Structure

Interaction

Conference Paper · May 2015

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Tufan Cakir
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 Digital Proceeding of ICOCEE – CAPPADOCIA2015
S. Sahinkaya and E. Kalıpcı (Editors)
Nevsehir, TURKEY, May 20-23, 2015

Dynamic Analysis of A Cantilever Retaining Wall Including Soil-Structure Interaction

Tufan Cakir1
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Gümüşhane University, Türkiye.
(E-mail: cakirtufan@hotmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to a quantification of the effect of soil-structure interaction on
seismic response of the cantilever retaining walls. Considering five different subsoil conditions, the seismic
analyses of backfill-cantilever wall-soil/foundation interaction system were carried out in time domain through
finite element method. The finite element model of the system was constructed using the finite element package
ANSYS. The backfill-wall interface behaviour was taken into account by using interface elements between the
wall and soil to allow for de-bonding. Radiation damping and wave reflection effects were also considered by
using artificial viscous boundaries. The response quantities examined incorporate the lateral displacements of the
wall relative to the moving base and the stresses in the wall. The results show that soil-structure interaction is of
critical importance for seismic design of cantilever retaining walls and accurate consideration of soil-structure
interaction in modelling may lead to more realistic and reliable predictions.

Keywords: Cantilever wall; Radiation damping; Seismic response; Soil-structure interaction; Wave reflection

112. INTRODUCTION

Previous investigations have shown that the material properties of the medium supporting the foundation play a
very significant role in modifying the responses of the superstructure. Soil-structure interaction gives rise to
kinematic and inertial effects, resulting in modifications of the dynamic properties of the structure and the
characteristics of the ground motion around the foundation [1]. An increase in the natural period and a change in
the modal damping for the fundamental mode of vibration are produced by the inertial interaction. The increase
in period is a result of the flexibility of the soil, whereas the change in damping results from the loss of energy in
the soil by radiation and material damping [2-3].

Examining the influences of earthquake on structures has long been recognized as a necessary step to understand
the natural hazards and its risk to the society in the long run. Over the years, considerable research has been
performed to study earthquake related retaining wall problems. These investigations can be broadly divided in
two categories, namely, theoretical and experimental studies. Theoretical studies include analytical and
numerical investigations. Experimental studies incorporate shaking table tests, centrifuge tests and field testing.
Decades ago, a big concern of geotechnical engineers was the development and application of new and powerful
numerical methods for the analysis of large and complex civil engineering structures. The rapid development of
finite element techniques accompanied by tremendous technological progress in the field of personal computers
allowed engineers to use software packages for the identification of structural behaviour [4].

Seismic analysis and design trends of retaining walls reflected in the technical literature can be divided broadly
into three main categories based upon the approach and the theory used by the various researchers. These are
limit state analyses, elastic analyses, and elasto-plastic and nonlinear analyses. Most of the investigations carried
out within these three categories in the past are well known and summarized in various studies [5-13], and need
not be repeated herein.

Considering previous studies, it is seen that most of them have focused on the determination of earthquake-
induced soil pressures. On the other hand, limited research has been done on the effects of soil-structure
interaction on seismic behaviour of cantilever walls in three dimensional space. Furthermore, many modern
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codes, including the Eurocodes and the Italian Building Code, do not explicitly refer to cantilever walls. The
current Greek Seismic Code and Turkish Earthquake Code address the retaining walls adopting pseudo-static
analysis although it does not take into account the soil-structure interaction and wave propagation effects. The
main goal of this study is to investigate the dynamic behaviour of a cantilever retaining wall considering backfill
and subsoil interactions.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE MODEL

At this point, the soil-structure model used in the analysis, will be briefly described. The vertical stem height of
the cantilever wall is H= 6 m, the wall stem has a constant thickness of 0.4 m, the thickness of base slab is 0.6 m,
and the base slab width is 4 m. The cantilever wall system is founded on a deformable soil layer of thickness 2H.
Dry-cohesionless soil is considered in the modelling. Furthermore, three-dimensional modelling of interaction
system for a cantilever wall length of 1m is adopted in this study. It should be noted here that the finite element
modelling and analyses were carried out by using general purpose finite element package ANSYS [14]. The
cantilever wall itself is discretized by 3-D solid elements (SOLID 65) defined by eight nodes having three
translational degrees of freedom in each node in the finite element procedure. The discretization of the soil
medium is made by 3-D structural solid elements (SOLID 185) defined by eight nodes having three degrees of
freedom at each node: translations in the nodal x, y, z directions. Moreover, as a special interface element,
nonlinear spring is used between the backfill and the wall allowing for the opening and closing of the gaps (i.e.
de-bonding and bonding) to model backfill-wall interaction.

When modelling a dynamic problem including soil-structure interaction, particular attention must be given to the
soil boundary conditions. As the soil is modelled by a finite element grid which will be truncated by artificial
grid boundaries, there is a need for using absorbing boundaries to simulate the radiation of energy away from the
structure. The general approach of treating the problem is to divide the infinite medium into the near field
(truncated layer), which includes the irregularity as well as the non-homogeneity of the soil adjacent to the
structure, and the far field, which is simplified as an isotropic homogeneous elastic medium [15]. Thus, as an
alternative to modelling very large soil volumes and to limit the model to a reasonable size, special artificial
and/or transmitting boundaries must be introduced in the finite element analysis of dynamic soil-structure
interaction problems. This not only avoids unrealistic wave reflections against the artificial boundaries
introduced in the mathematical model but also provides the consideration of radiation effects, and thus, the
results are not distorted. In this study, the viscous boundary model [16] is used in three dimensions to consider
radiational effect of the seismic waves through the soil medium. To represent the behaviour of the semi-infinite
backfill medium, the critical minimum distance from the face of the wall is taken as 10H, a value which is
believed to approximate adequately the behaviour of the semi-infinite layer [6, 9]. In this context, the dashpots
were also placed 10H away from the wall in three dimensions to improve the accuracy of the simulation.
Similarly, the artificial viscous boundaries have been placed in three dimensions on the boundaries of
soil/foundation medium. The proposed finite element model of the backfill-cantilever wall-soil/foundation
system is shown in Fig. 1.

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 Drucker-Prager
-σ3  0
σ1 = σ2 = σ3
3c cot 

-σ2
-σ1

12 m

130 m

35 m

Soil finite
element F
Structural finite
element (Dn;Fn)

Behavior of nonlinear
unidirectional interface element

3-D viscous boundary

130 m

Figure 17. Finite element model of backfill-cantilever wall-soil/foundation interaction system.

3. DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

To shed some light on the dynamic performance of cantilever walls, a series of dynamic analysis are conducted
for the system. The Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and unit weight of the wall are 28000 MPa, 0.2 and 25
kN/m3, respectively. The Young’s Modulus, the Poisson’s ratio and the unit weight of cohesionless backfill soil
were taken to be 30 MPa, 0.35 and 18 kN/m3, respectively. To evaluate the dynamic response of the cantilever
wall supported on flexible foundation, five different foundation soil types were considered in the analyses, as
shown in Table 1. C02065 component of 1966 Parkfield earthquake was used in time history analyses. The
horizontal peak ground acceleration for this record reaches 4.7 m/s2. Furthermore, Rayleigh damping was taken
into consideration in the analyses. The damping values for both structure and soil were presumed to be 5%.

Table 8. Properties of the soil types considered in this study.

Soil types E (kN/m2) G (kN/m2)  γ (kg/m3) Vs (m/s) Vp (m/s)

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 S1 2000000 769231 0.30 2000 620.17 1160.24

S2 500000 185185 0.35 1900 312.20 649.89

S3 150000 55556 0.35 1900 171.00 355.96

S4 75000 26786 0.40 1800 121.99 298.81

S5 35000 12500 0.40 1800 83.33 204.12

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Computational results, obtained by applying the proposed procedure, are presented in terms of the lateral
displacements and stresses. Table 2 summarizes the calculated peak responses and the corresponding times
where the maximum lateral top displacements and stresses occurred. Table 2 shows that effect of soil-structure
interaction is significant on the structural response of the cantilever retaining wall so that the peak responses are
different from each other depending on the variation of soil/foundation conditions.

A comparison among the height-wise variations of lateral displacements of cantilever wall under different
soil/foundation conditions is presented in Fig. 2. These displacements represent the relative lateral displacements
of the wall with respect to the ground. While the negative displacements refer to the movements away from the
backfill, the positive ones refer to the movements toward the backfill. Effects of soil-structure interaction on the
displacement response of the wall are clearly observed from this figure, and it is clear that the structural response
is highly dependent on the soil/foundation stiffness variation.

Table 9. Summary of the dynamic analysis results

Soil types
Maximum
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5
responses
t (s) Value t (s) Value t (s) Value t (s) Value t (s) Value

ut (m) 4.55 0.0012 4.55 0.0091 4.55 0.0269 4.60 0.0420 4.60 0.0598

- - -
Szb (MPa) 4.50 -0.7151 4.50 -4.9934 4.45 4.45 4.50
12.1711 15.0062 13.2797

Syb (MPa) 4.50 -0.0861 4.45 -0.6348 4.45 -1.5975 4.45 -2.0419 4.50 -1.9231

Sxb (MPa) 4.50 -0.2105 4.50 -1.8150 4.45 -4.7101 4.45 -6.1275 4.50 -5.9937

Szf (MPa) 4.50 0.7268 4.50 5.0606 4.45 12.3159 4.45 15.1563 4.50 13.3952

Syf (MPa) 4.50 0.0586 4.40 0.4057 4.40 0.9767 4.45 1.2348 4.50 1.1371

Sxf (MPa) 4.40 0.0937 4.40 0.4979 4.40 0.9712 4.40 1.0811 4.45 0.8280

ut : Maximum lateral top displacement of cantilever wall; Szb, Syb and Sxb : Stresses estimated on the
back face (backfill side) of the cantilever wall in z, y and x directions, respectively; Szf, Syf and Sxf :
Stresses estimated on the front face of the cantilever wall in z, y and x directions, respectively.

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 movement away from movement toward
backfill backfill
7

Height (m)
4

2
S3

1 S4
S5
0
-0.08 -0.04 0.00 0.04 0.08
Displacement (m)

Figure 18. Lateral displacements along the height of the cantilever wall.

To clarify the changes of the lateral top displacement values due to the flexible foundation conditions, the
deviations of the displacements in time are illustrated and compared in Fig. 3. As Fig. 3 depicts, the response
amplification has occurred in different soil/foundation conditions. For example, while the maximum lateral top
displacement was estimated as 0.0091 m for S2 soil type, the same quantities were computed as 0.0269 m and
0.0598 m for S3 and S5 soil types, respectively. It is clear that soil-structure interaction has led to the dramatic
increments of about 196% and 557% in peak displacement responses for S3 and S5 soil types compared to S2
soil type, respectively. It is concluded that the response amplification or reduction pattern due to the deformable
foundation is highly dependent on the stiffness of soil/foundation system.

0.08
t= 4.60 s ut= 0.0598 m (S5)
Top displacement (m)

0.06
t= 4.55 s ut= 0.0269 m (S3)
0.04
t= 4.55 s ut= 0.0091 m (S2)
0.02
0.00
-0.02 S2
S3
-0.04
S5
-0.06
0 3 6 9 12
Time (s)

Figure 3. Time histories of lateral top displacements.

Similarly, the transient stresses for cantilever wall due to the horizontal excitation can be compared with each
other to introduce the soil-structure interaction effects. It has to be said here that since all results obtained from
the finite element model cannot be illustrated, some comparisons were selected to define the system behaviour.

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Therefore, the time history diagrams of stress responses in z direction for back face of the cantilever wall are
presented in Fig. 4. As Fig. 4 demonstrates, the maximum stress responses due to soil-structure interaction are
highly magnified, and the responses generally tend to increase with decreasing of the soil/foundation stiffness.
For example, at the back face of the wall in the z direction, while the peak stress has the value of 4.9934 MPa for
S2 soil type, it is estimated as 15.0062 MPa for S4 soil type. This reveals an increment of about 200% in stress
value due to the decrement of soil/foundation stiffness. If the same comparisons are made in the x direction, a
similar trend can be easily observed.

15000000
10000000
5000000
Szb (N/m )
2

0
-5000000 t= 4.50 s Szb = -4.9934 MPa (S2)
-10000000 S2
t= 4.45 s Szb = -12.1711 MPa (S3)
-15000000 S3
t= 4.45 s Szb = -15.0062 MPa (S4) S4
-20000000
0 3 6 9 12
Time (s)

Figure 4. Stress time history responses in z direction at back face of the cantilever wall.

5. CONCLUSION

This paper concentrates on the influence of soil-structure interaction on dynamic response of a cantilever
retaining wall. A finite element method is introduced that can be used for the analysis of dynamic behaviour of
cantilever walls under horizontal ground excitation in three-dimensional space. The effect of foundation
deformability on the overall dynamic response of the system is examined by comparing the results among five
different soil types. The dynamic response of backfill-cantilever wall-soil/foundation system is assessed by using
the time histories of calculated lateral displacements of the wall and stresses in the wall. It is concluded that the
seismic response of cantilever retaining structures is a complex soil-structure interaction problem, and the
magnitudes of wall movements and stresses in the wall induced by horizontal ground shaking are quite sensitive
to the response of the soil underlying the wall. These evaluations should be considered as an alert that especially
the mechanical properties of soil are of paramount importance, and thus should be measured with utmost care.
The exclusion of the accurate soil properties may cause underestimation or overestimation of the response, and
this, in turn, may lead to unsafe seismic design of cantilever retaining walls.

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