Seismic behaviour of earth retaining structures

Our current activity on this topic is mainly related to investigate the behaviour of earth retaining structures, such as retaining walls, that frequently represent key elements of many constructed facilities and their stability is very important, in particular when they are used in seismically active areas. While significant advances have been made in the design of gravity type retaining walls under seismic loadings, little progress has been achieved in the analysis of the seismic response of flexible retaining walls, that is a challenging geotechnical problem, for which the dynamic soil-structure interaction plays a critical role. Simplified pseudo-static approaches are usually adopted in the current practice, but they do not allow a realistic assessment of the performance of these structures in dynamic conditions. A validation of existing pseudo-static approaches, or the introduction of novel simplified methods for design, requires the preliminary investigation of the problem by fully dynamic soil-structure analyses, involving the numerical determination of stress state, bending moments, displacements, and spatial and temporal variability of accelerations.

People

Publications

2010
  1. Numerical simulation of the performance of cantilever walls subjected to seismic loading
    Proceeding

    Pettiti, A; Assimaki, D; Foti, Sebastiano
    In: Proc. of the Fifth Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotech. Earthq. Eng. and Soil Dyn.
    Fifth Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotech. Earthq. Eng. and Soil Dyn. (San Diego) may 2010
    Vol.CD-Rom

2008
  1. Parametric study of cantilever walls subjected to earthquake loading
    Proceeding

    Comina, C; Corigliano, M; Foti, Sebastiano; Lai, C. G.; Lancellotta, R; Leuzzi, Francesco; Lidestri, G; Paolucci, R; Pettitia, A; Psarropoulos, P. N.; Zanoli, O.
    In: Proc. of 2008 Seismic Eng. Int. Conf. commemorating the 1908 Messina and Reggio Calabria Earthquake
    AIP (STATI UNITI D'AMERICA)
    MERCEA08 (Reggio Calabria) 8-11 July 2008
    Vol.2 (pp.703-710)

2007
  1. Lower-bound approach for seismic passive earth resistance
    Article

    Lancellotta, Renato
    GEOTECHNIQUE
    Institution of Civil Engineers Thomas Telford London
    Vol.57 pp.3 (pp.319-321) ISSN:0016-8505 DOI:10.1680/geot.2007.57.3.319

  2. On the seismic design of diaphragm walls according to EC8-5
    Proceeding

    Comina, Cesare; Foti, Sebastiano; Lancellotta, R; Leuzzi, Francesco; Pettiti, Alberto
    In: Geotechnical Aspects of EC8
    Pàtron (ITALIA)
    XIV Europ. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Eng., ISSMGE - ERTC 12 Workshop (Madrid) 25 September 2007
    Vol.CD-Rom ISBN:9788855529433

Total: 4