On Seismic Displacements of Rigid Retaining Walls

Rigid retaining walls experience both sliding and rocking displacement during earthquakes. Richards and Elms' (1979) method incorporates only sliding displacements in design. A realistic method of computing both sliding and rocking displacements of the walls based on nonlinear soil properties both for the base soil and backfill was developed by Rafnsson and Prakash (1994). A design procedure based on this method was then developed by Prakash et al. (1995b). Comparisons of the displacements of typical walls by both the methods have been made. Also, typical field data from recent earthquakes has been analyzed to compare the observed displacements with the computed displacements.