Dynamic Soil Pressures on Vertical Walls

A summary is presented of recently contributed simple approximate solutions for the dynamic pressures and the associated forces induced by ground shaking on rigid vertical walls. The walls are presumed to be either straight or circular in plan and to retain a uniform viscoelastic soil stratum of constant thickness and infinite extent in the horizontal direction. Both the walls and the stratum are considered to be supported on a non-deformable base undergoing a space-invariant, uniform horizontal motion. The effects of both harmonic and earthquake-induced excitations are examined, and comprehensive numerical data ate presented which elucidate the underlying response mechanisms and the effects and relative importance of the various parameters involved. A brief review is then included of available simple, approximate schemes for modeling the systems examined. Finally, the sources and magnitudes of the errors that may result from the use of these models are identified, and modifications are proposed with which the responses of the systems may be defined correctly. In the proposed modifications, the soil stratum is modeled by a series of elastically supported semi-infinite layers with distributed mass. The concepts involved are introduced for the straight wall and are then applied to the embedded cylindrical system