Displacement Analysis of Rigid Retaining Walls in Rocking

The paper presents a simple approach for computing rotational displacements of rigid retaining walls during an earthquake, an aspect that had not been considered so far (1981). The values of rotational displacements using the proposed method for various combinations of wall geometry, backfill material and ground motion parameters have been worked out. The values of rotational displacements have been compared with the values obtained by using available approaches for displacement analysis (sliding or overall) for rigid retaining walls and it is shown that the contribution of rotation to the overall displacement of the retaining wall may be quite significant in some cases and should therefore, be accounted for. The necessity to develop a rational displacement analysis considering combined rocking and sliding is stressed