Numerical Modelling of the Seismic Behaviour of Gravity-Type Quay Walls (original) (raw)
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Seismic Behavior Evaluation of the Hump-Back Block Type Quay Wall
A quay is a long platform beside the sea or river where boats and vessels can berth and loaded and unloaded. Gravity quay wall are the most common type of marine structures and some advantages of this type are easy construction technology, good durability and suitable costs. In safety of harbor facilities, gravity quay wall plays a key and drastic role in supporting of harbor structure against some probable dangers. Any abrupt movement or destruction that occurs by an earthquake may result huge economic losses and some irreparable problems. For better understanding of influence of some basic components, dynamic analysis on different geotechnical parameters such as; backfill elasticity module, backfill internal friction, backfill special weight, seabed relative density and wall’s concrete special weight have been done. A two finite element program PLAXIS 2D, is used to carry out all numerical experiments on a reference model. Results show that in all cases where the foundation soil is relatively soft and loose, a gravity quay wall shows more displacements at foundation level and unsuitable behavior to rotate towards the sea. This study has manifested a specific relation between soil seabed density and seabed width, moreover, in a hump-back quay wall maximum amount of settlement of backfill occurs at a predictable distance from the wall that it could account a different and practical behavior, in comparison with other types of quay wall. So, informing of these predictable behaviors could help us in achieving an optimized design.
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2021
In this paper, the effect of selecting the earthquake equivalent acceleration coefficient on the seismic performance of the broken-back quay wall of Pars Petrochemical Port has been studied as a case study. In this regard, the recommendations and relationships presented in the old and new editions of the Japanese Maritime Codes (OCDI, 2002, 2009) are more comprehensive and complete than other codes, especially in the seismic design of quay wall structures. The results illustrated that the proposed relationships of horizontal earthquake acceleration coefficient (kh) based on the new version of the Japanese maritime code is more suitable and helps predict the seismic performance of this type of quay walls more accurately and their realistic design. Moreover, based on acceleration time-histories resulting from seismic hazard studies at the site, using FLAC2D software, the values of horizontal displacement of the quay wall have been investigated, and based on that, earthquake coefficien...
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Effect of Foundation and Backfill Relative Density on the Seismic Performance of a Quay Wall
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The seismic performance of quay walls is of vital importance for trade operations that may affect the local or national economy. Depending on the method or quality of construction, some quay walls may be vulnerable to large permanent seaward movements, settlements and tilt, which may disrupt their operation after a strong ground shaking. This article examines the seismic performance of the quay wall of a Greek port through an extensive numerical investigation using effective-stress analysis. The quay wall consists of a stack of concrete blocks having a height of 14.3 m and founded on a layer of rockfill and sandy gravel. The material properties are obtained from laboratory tests based on three boreholes at the quay wall site, SPT tests and a cross-hole test. For non-cohesive soils, a modification of the generalized plasticity model by Pastor et al. (1990) for monotonic and cyclic loading is used, whereas for cohesive soils, the Mohr-Colomb elasto-plastic model combined with hysteret...
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Investigation of Soil and Quay Wall Interaction Under Seismic Loading
Optimal design of Quay Walls against seismic forces has become a challenge for engineers. For countries that are placed on the earthquake belt, it is very important to investigate the strength and behavior of quay walls against earthquakes. In this study, the behavior of cantilever concrete quay walls placed on the saturated cohesive soil is studied using finite element method in ANSYS Software. Patterns of the interaction between soil and structure prove to be very complicated. On the other hand, with the consideration of the interactions between soil and structure under the seismic forces, the problem will be made much more complicated. In the present study, height of the quay walls, soil type, strength and duration of the earthquake on the Bending moment against the wall are considered and pressure distributions behind the wall have been investigated.
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Static and dynamic behavior of hunchbacked gravity quay walls
One of the parameters that can affect the lateral pressures behind a retaining wall is the back-face shape of the wall, which can be controlled by the designer, and has not been investigated experimentally. Therefore, in order to study this behavior, a set of 1g shaking table tests was carried out on hunched back gravity type quay walls made of concrete blocks. Crushed stone and silica sand were used in the backfill and subsoil, respectively. The subsoil was prepared by moist tamping. The models were fully instrumented and beside each earth pressure transducer a pore water pressure sensor was also installed behind the wall therefore the lateral effective stress acting on the wall could be calculated. Tests were performed with various base accelerations on models with different subsoil relative densities. The results show that the earth pressure increases at upper portions of the wall and decreases by the leaning slope at lower elevations. Depending on the back-face shape of the wall the total thrust and overturning moment would be increased or decreased after an earthquake. However, the hunched back-shape of the wall tends to raise the point of application of the total thrust exerted on the wall. Other advantages of hunched back walls are demonstrated as well.
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Probabilistic Assessment of Pseudo-Static Design of Gravity-Type Quay Walls
Failure of the quay walls due to earthquakes results in severe economic loss. Because of hazards threatening such inexpensive nodes of national and international transportation networks, seismic design of quay walls is still an evolving topic in marine structural engineering. This study investigates the sensitivity of the gravity-type quay wall stability respect to uncertain soil and seismic properties using ultimate limit-sate pseudo-static design process. Stability is defined in terms of safety factor against sliding (sfs), overturning (sfo) and exceeding bearing capacity (sfb). In order to assess the forces exerting on quay walls, to be more accurate, pore water pressure ratio, horizontal and vertical inertia forces, fluctuating and non-fluctuating components of hydraulic and soil pressure were considered. It was found that the increase of water depth in front of the quay, vertical and horizontal seismic coefficients, and pore water pressure ratio play important roles in reduction of all mentioned safety factors. Increase of specific weight of the rubble mound, backfill and foundation soil, friction angle of wall-foundation/seabed interface and wall back-face/backfill interface and friction angle of backfill soil, lead safety factors to magnify. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis was also performed using the tornado diagrams. Results of this study could give designers insights into the importance of uncertain soil and seismic factors, in order to choose geometry of the design in a way that its analysis and assessment is less relied on severely uncertain parameters and to introduce more reliable and economic quay walls.
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