Seismic response or gravity quay walls. II: Numerical modeling

It is important to understand the seismic response of quay walls in order to design these structures against earthquake loading. Centrifuge experiments were carried out at Cambridge University on gravity quay walls. In this paper, an effective-stress based, fully coupled finite element code called SWANDYNE is used to simulate the response of gravity quay walls under earthquake loading, and the results are compared with the data from centrifuge tests. It is found from the analysis that the absorbing boundaries used in the centrifuge experiments to simulate the free field condition can be effectively modeled by a new numerical technique. The initial velocity and displacement conditions experienced by the centrifuge model need to be replicated in the numerical analysis. Special slip elements were used at the interface between the quay wall and soil body to improve the numerical predictions. The results of numerical modeling agree reasonably well with experimental data for both dry and saturated tests.