Investigation of stability parameters change in cantilever retaining walls with ahp method

Retaining walls are engineering structures with a wide application area, built to provide that the soil remain stable with a slope steeper than the natural slope. In the design of retaining walls, back-wall soil properties, groundwater conditions and the effects of dynamic forces such as earthquakes should be interpreted correctly. In this study, by considering Turkey Building Earthquake Regulation (TBDY-2018), the effects of parameters changes such as earthquake acceleration coefficient, groundwater level, seismic reduction coefficient, back-wall soil and subsoil of the foundation,on the overturning moment and shear force of retaining walls are determined by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. In the analysis, it is seen that the overturning moments are more affected by the change of parameters than the sliding forces. It is determined that groundwater level change is the most effective on the overturning moments, on the other hand the effect of the earthquake reduction coefficient change is the least. It is concluded that AHP method is a suitable solution to predict the change of the overturning moment and sliding forces when retaining walls are constructed in regions having different soil layers, different earthquake acceleration coefficient or different groundwater level properties.