"DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF REINFORCEDEARTHEN EMBANKMENTS"

Abstract

Reinforced earth is good in taking compression and tension and shows ductile behavior and hence ideal for use in geotechnical earthquake engineering. This analytical investigation attempts to propose a suitable method of analyzing reinforced earth embankments under dynamic conditions. Since testing of large prototypes of R.E. embankments under dynamic conditions require huge experimental setup and shake table facility. It is very difficult to carry out experimental investigations of R.E. embankments each and every time. When situated in earthquake prone areas it is necessary to know their behavior under dynamic loading. So to overcome these difficulties it is necessary to propose a suitable of analyzing R.E. embankments and determine there response for their safe design and construction. In this study 2D linear dynamic PENT analysis of the R.E embankment in time domain under plane strain conditions was carried out. The response obtained was compared with the experimental response obtained from tests carried out on large R.E. embankments using shake table facility by Siavoshnia (1998). To reduce the discrepancy between analytical and experimental response the R.E. embankment was idealized into a two-layer and three —layer system where each layer was attributed homogeneous properties. The response obtained by superior two and three layer idealization was closer to the experimental response. There was considerable reduction in the discrepancy between the computed and experimental results. It was also established that no appreciable reduction in the discrepancy could be achieved by further idealization of the embankment into four or five layer system.