Pseudo-Static Design and Analysis of Seismic Earth Pressure for Cantilever Retaining Walls with Limitation Assessment

By critically reviewing pseudo-static methods, it is demonstrated that approximating the earth pressure on a short heel’s vertical face (V-plane) using the Rankine solution for long-heel walls induces a negligible error. A finite element analysis is deployed to validate the pseudo-static results, with dynamic simulations incorporating 1–5 Hz sinusoidal seismic excitations to probe the resonance effects. The key results show that disregarding the impact of layered backfill placement on the initial stress states leads to non-conservative estimates of active earth pressure. Furthermore, the point of application of earth pressure rises significantly during strong shaking, and although the transient safety factors against sliding and overturning may fall below 1.0 during seismic events, the residual deformation analysis suggests that this does not necessarily lead to collapse. A significant amplification of bending moments and greater reductions in post-earthquake safety factors occur when the input frequency approaches the natural frequency of a wall. Finally, the paper proposes resonance prevention strategies for the seismic design of cantilever retaining walls, a methodology incorporating construction effects into the initial stress field modeling, and recommendations for selecting effective safety factors.