Analyzing seismic performance of gravity type quay walls with sliding block method

In this study, a simplified dynamic analysis method is proposed to evaluate the magnitude and the phase variation of the dynamic thrust acting on the the gravity type quay walls and to predict the seismic sliding displacement of gravity type quay walls by considering the variation of wall thrust. The method uses the Newmark sliding block concept and the variable yield acceleration, which varies according to the wall thrust, to calculate the quay wall displacement. In order to make this algorithm almost immediately applicable, the computer program was written in MATLAB. Analyses were made for two different caisson models and a cantilever wall model. For the first caisson model, two different backfill materials (d50=2.2 and 0.9 cm) and for the second caisson model, only one backfill material (d50=0.9 cm) were considered. Also, only one backfill material (d50=0.9 cm) was considered for cantilever wall model. Obtained results were compared with the measurements of 1g shaking table tests to verify the applicability of proposed method and comparison verified that the proposed method properly predicts the wall displacements.