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:
  Earthquake Resistant Design Earth Walls Finite Element Method Retaining Walls Seismicity Structural Connection
• 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.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  74.900000000000006
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:cefa7b8789f0fefa47a839cd1b052e59a2ddefd90c08a571e8b28278994e4d9f
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26886/dot_26886_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 7.31 MB ]