Effects of Dimensions of Tire Waste Cushion on Seismic Performance of Retaining Wall

Geotechnical structures such as retaining walls are key elements of ports and harbors, transportation system lifelines, and other infrastructural facilities. These structures suffer excessive deformations or damages resulting from the increased earth pressure during the earthquakes. Inclusion of vertical compressible layers called as cushion layer can be a solution to increase the stability of the retaining structures in seismic regions. In the literature, two different compressible materials as geofoam and tire wastes-sand mixtures are studied to mitigate earthquake-induced dynamic earth pressures against rigid walls. This study proposes a seismic cushion material as tire crumb-sand mixture in decreasing structural hazard of retaining wall during earthquake loadings. Previous researches showed that the cushion thickness plays an important role on the seismic performance of retaining structures. The aim of this study is to determine the optimum seismic cushion thickness/height ratio (t/H) to increase the seismic performance of the wall. Both wall height and cushion thicknesses vary to achieve the desired cushion dimensions. A typical retaining wall with a tire waste-sand cushion is modelled by a finite element program called PLAXIS. This paper presents a series of numerical simulations to investigate the effects of dimensions of compressible tire waste-sand cushion to attenuate dynamic loads against rigid retaining walls. In addition, this research is an attempt towards developing an environmentally friendly earthquake resistant technique that has a reasonably good balance of cost and performance for improving the seismic performance of retaining structures.

Keywords:

Retaining wall, seismic performance, tire crumb-sand mixtures cushion, earthquake,

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