SEISMIC DESIGN AND THE PERFORMANCE OF REINFORCED SEGMENTAL RETAINING WALLS

The term segmental retaining (RSRW) has been used to identify soil retaining wall structures built with a hard facing comprising a column of dry-stacked modular concrete units and reinforced with geosynthetic layers. This article provides a brief overview of recently completed work that is focused on the design, analysis and performance of RSRWs under seismic loading conditions. The research to date has been restricted to structures seated on firm foundations for which settlement and collapse of the foundation materials are not a concern. Analytical and numerical approaches for the seismic analysis of RSRWs can be divided into three categories: 1. pseudo-static methods; 2. displacement methods, and 3. finite element methods. Results and conclusions are presented.