User Manual for

Seismic Design of Retaining Walls (SDRW 1.0)

Developed by:
Siavash Zamiran, Ph.D., M.ASCE
Email: szamiran@meacorporation.com
Civil/Geotechnical Engineer
Marino Engineering Associates, Inc.

Sima Moradi Bajestani, M.Sc.

Email: simorad@siue.edu
Transportation Engineer
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Supervised by:

Abdolreza Osouli, Ph.D., P.E.

Email: aosouli@siue.edu
Associate Professor
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Partial Support by:

Geo-Institute St. Louis Section

(GeoConfluence Research Scholarship 2016 Award)

www.sdrw-software.weebly.com
2017
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INTRODUCTION
Current seismic design criteria for retaining wall structures suggested by different organizations
are based on estimating seismic earth pressure of the wall using analytical solutions. Analytical
solutions can be categorized by mathematical methods that are used to estimate dynamic earth
pressure during an earthquake. Two major categories for analytical solutions are pseudo-static
and pseudo-dynamic methods. The first analytical attempt as a pseudo-static method to evaluate
seismic earth pressure of retaining walls was suggested by Okabe (1926). The analytical
procedure suggested by Okabe was verified by Mononobe and Matsuo (1929) using
experimental models in shake table to evaluate seismic pressure in unsaturated and cohesionless
soil material. The method developed by these investigators are known as Mononobe-Okabe
method and is still used widely to evaluate seismic earth pressure of retaining walls for design
and construction purposes by engineers. Several investigators developed the analytical method
suggested by Okabe (1926) to reduce the number of assumptions and extend the methodology to
be used in different scenarios. For instance, Prakash and Saran (1966) took the effects of wall
adhesion and surface crack into consideration during calculating seismic earth pressure using
limit state method.

Pseudo-dynamic approach as the second category has been developed by researchers to include
seismic characteristics of the earthquake into analytical solutions to provide more accurate and
realistic solution for estimating seismic earth pressure. As one of the primary efforts, Steedman
and Zeng (1990) considered the time and phase differences of horizontal earthquake loading
based on shear wave propagation inside backfill material to determine seismic response of
gravity retaining walls.

The second methodology for the seismic design of retaining wall is displacement-based design.
Different studies have been conducted to evaluate wall displacement due to the seismic
excitation. In the study of Woodward and Griffiths (1996), wall displacement of the gravity
retaining wall with cohesionless backfill was evaluated. In a more recent study by Green and
Ebeling (2003), permanent wall displacement due to seismic loading in the numerical model was
evaluated. Numerical results were compared to Newmark sliding block analysis (Newmark
1965).

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The program SDRW (Seismic Design of Retaining Walls) has been developed for evaluating
seismic response of retaining walls. The SDRW also includes the National Cooperative Highway
Research Program (NCHRP 611) (Anderson et al. 2008) approach. For seismic active earth
pressure evaluation in the program, Mononobe-Okabe method, Seed and Whitman (1970), and
Osouli and Zamiran (2017) methods included. For seismic passive earth pressure the
methodology of Mononobe-Okabe and Shamsabadi et al. (2013) have been included. Moreover,
for displacement-based analysis, the methodologies suggested by Richards and Elms (1979),
Anderson et al. (2008) , and Zamiran and Osouli (2017) are implemented in the program. In the
next section, the design procedure provided by the program is introduced.

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DESIGN PROCEDURE
The procedure for the seismic design of retaining walls is brought as following.

Step 1: Input Geometry

Input geometry of the retaining wall is applied by the user as shown in Figure 1. Two different
types of retaining walls are supported by the software including gravity and cantilever retaining
walls.
The Interface Factor (IF) is the proportion of soil-wall adhesion and internal friction angle to the
soil cohesion and internal friction angle. The default value for IF is 2/3 (i.e. 0.67) which can be
modified by the user.

Figure 1 Input geometry for cantilever retaining wall

Step 2: Soil and Wall Property

Soil and wall properties are assigned to the model as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2 Soil and wall property

Step 3: Earthquake Characteristics

Earthquake characteristics are assigned to the model according to Figure 4. The site Peak Ground
Acceleration (PGA) are defined by the user. For design conveniences, the USGS provided PGA
maps of two-percent and five-percent probability of exceedance in 50 years are provided in the
program. Spectral Acceleration at One Second (S1) is assigned by the user. S1 shows the
maximum acceleration of an earthquake on a damped harmonic oscillator in one dimension
through one second. This design value can be determined based on the site location, site class,
and risk category from the U.S. Seismic Design Maps available in the following address:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/designmaps/beta/us/
For example, for St. Louis, site Class A, and risk category of I the S1 is 0.160g as shown in
Figure 3.

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Figure 3 Example of S1 determination

For more information regarding the U.S. Seismic Design Maps through USGS website, check
information from the following link under Section Seismic Hazards:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq.php

Consequently, site class and site coefficient (Fv) are assigned. For specifying site coefficient, the
provided data in
Table 1 is used. The Peak Ground Velocity (PGV) of the site will be analyzed according to
NCHRP 611 report. Moreover, the user can specify PGV manually.

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Figure 4 Earthquake characteristics

Table 1 Site coefficient values (Anderson et al. 2008)

Step 4: Modify Kmax

The maximum PGA (Kmax) for the design is updated based on the height of the retaining wall
according to NCHRP 611 report as shown in Figure 5. Based on the NCHRP 611 report, the
input PGA for the retaining wall design shall be modified based on the height of the wall for the
retaining walls higher than 20 ft. Therefore, according to the NCHRP 611 report, the modified
PGA will be height-dependent reduction factor times the initial PGA of the earthquake. For

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retaining walls with lower than 20 ft., the factor is 1.0. For retaining wall higher than 20 ft., the
reduction factor is calculated by the program using methodology described in NCHRP 611
report, Section 7.5.2.

Figure 5 Modifying PGA value

Step 5: Seismic Active Earth Thrust Determination

Seismic active earth thrust and seismic active earth thrust coefficient are determined as shown in
Figure 6. The user can choose following studies for determining seismic active earth thrust and
seismic active earth thrust coefficient:
Mononobe-Okabe method
Seed and Whitman (1970)
Osouli and Zamiran (2017)
Manual input by the user

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Figure 6 Analyzing seismic active earth thrust and seismic active earth thrust coefficient

Step 6: Seismic Passive Earth Thrust Determination

Seismic passive earth thrust and seismic passive earth thrust coefficient are determined as shown
in Figure 7. The user can choose following studies for determining seismic passive earth thrust
and seismic passive earth thrust coefficient:
Mononobe-Okabe method
Shamsabadi et al. (2013)
Manual input by the user

Figure 7 Analyzing seismic passive earth thrust and seismic passive earth thrust coefficient
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Step 7: Safety Factor Calculations

The sliding and overturning safety factors due to earthquake are calculated based on resisting and
driving forces on the retaining walls as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8 Safety factor calculation

Step 8: Maximum Relative Wall Displacement Evaluation

The Maximum Relative Wall Displacement (RWD) is calculated as shown in Figure 9. For
determination of Maximum RWD, the yield acceleration (Ky) is needed. Yield acceleration is a
design acceleration which the result of stability safety factor based on this acceleration will be
1.0. For finding yield acceleration, the user shall run trial analyses with different PGA values to
find out the appropriate PGA resulting the safety factor of 1.0. The resulting PGA shall be used
as yield acceleration. For conducting Maximum RWD analysis, following procedures are
provided:
Richards and Elms method (Richards and Elms 1979)
Zamiran and Osouli study (2017)
NCHRP method (Anderson et al. 2008)

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It is noteworthy that based on NCHRP method, different correlations should be used for Western
US and Central-East US seismic zones. The user can identify the specific equation based on the
location of the project. The Maximum RWD derived from the analysis shall be checked to be
less than the Maximum Allowable RWD of the system. The Maximum Allowable RWD values
are calculated by the program based on two different studies including Huang et al. (2009) and
Wu and Prakash (2001).

Figure 9 Maximum Relative Wall Displacement determination

Step 9: Final Report Configuration

After conducting the design procedure, a report will be provided containing input parameters and
design outputs as shown in Figure 10.

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Figure 10 Final report configuration

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REFERENCES
Anderson, D. G., Martin, G. R., Lam, I. (Po), and Wang, J. N. (Joe). (2008). Seismic Analysis
and Design of Retaining Walls, Buried Structures, Slopes, and Embankments. National
Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), Transportation Research Board.
Green, R. A., and Ebeling, R. M. (2003). Modeling the Dynamic Response of Cantilever Earth-
Retaining Walls Using FLAC. A.A. Balkema Publishers, Sudbury, ON, Canada, 333
342.
Huang, C.-C., Wu, S.-H., and Wu, H.-J. (2009). Seismic Displacement Criterion for Soil
Retaining Walls Based on Soil Strength Mobilization. Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering, 135(1), 7483.
Mononobe, N., and Matsuo, H. (1929). On the Determination of Earth Pressures During
Earthquakes. World Engineering Congress 9, 177185.
Newmark, N. M. (1965). Effects of Earthquakes on Dams and Embankments. Geotechnique,
15(2), 139160.
Okabe, S. (1926). General Theory of Earth Pressures. Journal Japan Society of Civil
Engineering, 10(6), 12771323.
Osouli, A., and Zamiran, S. (2017). The effect of backfill cohesion on seismic response of
cantilever retaining walls using fully dynamic analysis. Computers and Geotechnics, 89,
143152.
Prakash, S., and Saran, S. (1966). Static and dynamic earth pressures behind retaining walls.
Third Symposium on Earthquake Engineering, University of Roorkee, Roorkee, India,
27788.
Richards, R., and Elms, D. (1979). Seismic Behavior of Gravity Retaining Walls. J.
Geotechnical Engineering Div., ASCE, 105(GT4), 449464.
Seed, H. B., and Whitman, R. V. (1970). Design of Earth Retaining Structures for Dynamic
Loads. ASCE specialty conference on lateral stresses in the ground and design of earth-
retaining structures, ASCE, 103147.
Shamsabadi, A., Xu, S.-Y., and Taciroglu, E. (2013). A generalized log-spiral-Rankine limit
equilibrium model for seismic earth pressure analysis. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake
Engineering, 49, 197209.
Steedman, R. S., and Zeng, X. (1990). The influence of phase on the calculation of pseudo-
static earth pressure on a retaining wall. Gotechnique, 40(1), 103112.
Woodward, P. K., and Griffiths, D. V. (1996). Comparison of the pseudo-static and dynamic
behaviour of gravity retaining walls. Geotechnical and Geological Engineering, 14(4),
269290.
Wu, Y., and Prakash, S. (2001). Seismic Displacements of Rigid Retaining Walls. Fourth
International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering
and Soil Dynamics and Symposium in Honor of Professor W.D. Liam Finn, San Diego,
California.

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