Design of mechanically stabilized earth wall connections and end of walls subjected to seismic loads.

Details

• Creators:
  Kiousis, Panos D. ; Wang, Judith ; Walthall, Rebecca M.
• Corporate Creators:
  Colorado School of Mines
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Earth walls
  • Retaining walls
  • Structural connection
  • Finite element method
  • Seismicity
  • Earthquake resistant design
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CDOT-2014-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Colorado
• Corporate Publisher:
  Colorado. Dept. of Transportation. Research Branch
• Abstract:
  The 4th Edition of the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications requires all states to design for a 1,000- ; year return period earthquake, as opposed to earlier editions’ 500-year return period. In response to this ; requirement, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) sponsored this study to examine the impact ; that these more stringent design requirements have upon connection details in mechanically stabilized earth ; (MSE) walls. The objective of this study was to perform displacement-based dynamic finite element analyses ; of MSE walls to examine the response of selected internal components when subjected to seismic excitations ; such as those expected in Colorado. Details that were of particular interest were the upper block connections ; in modular block walls; the dynamic displacements of the ends of walls; and the relative displacements and ; motions between the wall facings, soil reinforcement, and soil. The results of this study show that segmental ; and modular block walls representative of typical current CDOT design practices performed well with respect ; to both serviceability and strength requirements, even under AASHTO’s newly stringent requirement for the ; consideration of a 1,000-year return period earthquake. ; Implementation: ; The results of these linear elastic finite element studies indicate that seismic design for MSE walls in ; Colorado does not need to be routinely completed. The MSE walls, which were modeled based upon walls ; designed using current CDOT MSE wall design procedures, performed very well under all of the seismic ; loads examined. This means that CDOT’s MSE walls do not need to be designed for seismic loads as per the ; AASHTO recommendation.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  74.900000000000006
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26886/dot_26886_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 7.31 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:cefa7b8789f0fefa47a839cd1b052e59a2ddefd90c08a571e8b28278994e4d9f