Experimental investigation of cyclic p-y curves for rigid walls supporting sands

Abstract

P-y curves have been widely used in the analysis of piles under lateral loads. However, the use of p-y curves for the analysis of rigid retaining walls supporting granular backfill is still in its early stages. There is a need for realistic and simplified models that could describe the p-y relationship for rigid retaining walls to be used as input in robust soil-structure-interaction problems in the context of performance-based design. These relationships will be of value if integrated in structural analysis software to describe the lateral earth pressures versus relative lateral displacements. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the cyclic p-y relationship for rigid walls supporting sands of different densities. This objective will be attained by designing and implementing an experimental testing program using a small-scale tank. One of the walls of the tank will be instrumented with pressure sensors that can record the lateral earth pressure on the wall under controlled cyclic movements. The experimental program builds on previous work that was done at the American University of Beirut on the p-y response under static loading conditions and extends it to cyclic loading. The main aim is to fill a void in the literature on the p-y response of rigid walls for applications involving soil structure interaction under seismic loading.