2019 Taiwan-Japan Joint Symposium on the Advancement of Urban Earthquake Hazard Mitigation Technology

EFFECT OF BACKFILL COHESION ON EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLIP SURFACE

FORMATION BEHIND RETAINING WALL - CENTRIFUGE MODEL TESTS

P. Hong-in1) and A. Takahashi2)

1) Graduate student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
2) Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
hong.p.aa@m.titech.ac.jp, takahashi.a.al@m.titech.ac.jp

Abstract: A study of dynamic interaction between retaining structure and backfill have attracted many
attentions from researchers in Japan since the large earthquake in 1995. In a conventional design procedure,
cohesion of the backfill is neglected, which can produce unrealistically large seismic load. In order to
reevaluate and to deepen understanding on the cohesion effect, centrifuge model experiments were
conducted by varying backfill cohesion. Sequential earthquake motions were applied to the model with
increasing the maximum acceleration from 100 to 900 gals. This paper focuses on the effect of backfill
cohesion on the slip surface angle, which is directly linked to the seismic earth pressure acting on the
retaining wall. An image processing technique is used to visualize the slip surface. Test results reveal that
the cohesion significantly affects the slip surface angle in the backfill.

1. INTRODUCTION

Structural damage to retaining structures during an earthquake in Japan is one of the serious topics
among civil engineers. Since the 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu earthquake caused severe damages to
retaining walls of railway embankments (Tatsuoka et al., 1996), a study on the dynamic interaction
between the retaining structure and backfill has attracted much attention from many researchers.
However, the conventional design procedure is found incompatible with the actual damage since it
neglects the influence of cohesion and treats the backfill as a cohesionless soil.

Figure 1. Active earth pressure distribution based on Rankin’s theory (Nakajima et al., 2018)

In the geotechnical design, soil is typically classified into 2 types; cohesive soil such as clay and
cohesionless (or non-cohesive) soil such as sand. Shear strength of the soil is depended on this
characteristic and design situation. By considering backfill as a non-cohesive type in the design, this
estimation could provide a large earth pressure, according to Rankine’s theory, as shown in Fig. 1,
which provides safer design but is not economical and is unrealistic. For this reason, it is necessary
to reevaluate and to deepen understanding of the effect of backfill cohesion on seismic earth pressure.
According to the test conducted by Nakajima et al. (2018) in 1g condition, cohesion had significant
influences on the small-scale retaining wall model; reduced the active earth pressure acting on the
wall, reduced the wall displacement, and effected the slip surface angle. In order to confirm this
behavior in a realistic stress condition, a centrifuge model experiment may be suitable. In this study,
a series of shaking table tests on gravity-type retaining walls is performed in the centrifuge (Ozaki et
al., 2019). Several types of sensors are installed inside the container. Furthermore, an image
 2019 Taiwan-Japan Joint Symposium on the Advancement of Urban Earthquake Hazard Mitigation Technology

processing technique is used to investigate backfill deformation.

In this paper, we focus on the effect of cohesion on the slip surface angle obtained from Particle
Image Velocimetry (PIV) analysis. We expect that this study leads to the understanding of dynamic
soil-wall interaction, such as seismic active earth pressure and retaining wall displacement, in our
further study.

2. TEST CONDITIONS AND METHODOLOGY

In this research, a small-scale model of retaining wall and backfill, assuming one-thirty of actual
structures, is prepared in a container, as shown in Fig 2 (a). Retaining wall used in this model is made
of aluminum and decided to be a gravity-type retaining wall for simplicity in the analysis. Earth
pressure behind retaining wall is measured by two-component load cells. In addition, laser
displacement transducers and accelerometers are also installed to analyze the response of the
retaining wall and the backfill. Location of accelerometers is mainly arranged inside the backfill, as
shown in Fig. 2 (b).
3.3 4.5 10.2
1.5 3.0 3.0 2.7
3.0

Retaining wall LDT_3

2.85 0.9

LDT_2
Two-Component
Load Cells (12)
Backfill
7.5

0.9 2.85

Accelerometers (15)
LDT_1
Laser Displacement
Transducers (3)
1.5

Subsoil

(a) (b) Length in prototype scale (m)

Figure 2. Retaining wall-soil model: (a) Model plan, and (b) Layout of sensors

Four cases of the test are conducted by changing the backfill cohesion. The range of the cohesion
follows the ground investigation made by the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI). Before
conducting the tests, the cohesion was estimated by Triaxial Compression Tests at RTRI. In order to
achieve the intended cohesion, subsoil and backfill are prepared with a specific amount of water
content and compacted in the model container under the designated degree of compaction in each
layer. Test conditions and soil properties can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Test conditions and basic properties of soils

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4
Soil Type D-type clay Inagi sand Inagi sand D-type clay
Cohesion force, c 14.5 kPa 3.8 kPa 13.6 kPa 6.4 kPa
Friction angle,  38.4 33.8 35.2 39.2
Degree of 90% in backfill 85% in backfill 92% in backfill 85% in backfill
compaction, Dc 94% in subsoil 98% in subsoil 98% in subsoil 94% in subsoil
Water content 22.0% 16.6% 16.6% 22.0%
Input waves 1 Hz and 2 Hz 2 Hz 2 Hz 2 Hz

The experiments are conducted using the geotechnical centrifuge at Tokyo Institute of Technology,
Japan. A series of dynamic centrifuge tests are performed at 30g gravity field (the artificial gravity
acceleration applied to model is 30 times Earth's gravity). 30g centrifugal acceleration is applied
based on the scaling law, which enables to reduce the physical model size by one-thirty of real
structure. The shaking table is also used to simulate the earthquake motion. A total of 10 sinusoidal
 2019 Taiwan-Japan Joint Symposium on the Advancement of Urban Earthquake Hazard Mitigation Technology

waves is applied horizontally to the model container with a maximum acceleration from 100 gals up
to 900 gals. Frequency of the input motions is 2Hz in prototype scale, except Case 1. In order to
visually observe the deformation of the backfill soil, the PIV technique is applied in the analysis.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this paper, we investigate the effect of backfill cohesion on the slip surface angle. By
evaluating this parameter, a sliding wedge of the backfill can be determined to interpret the
mechanism of retaining wall movement. As mentioned previously, the PIV analysis method is used
to calculate the displacement distribution in the backfill by comparing before-after experiment.
15.0 15.0
13.5 13.5
12.0 12.0
10.5 10.5
9.0 9.0
7.5 7.5
6.0 6.0
4.5 4.5
3.0 3.0
65o
70o (a) 1.5
(b) 1.5
(e)
0.0 0.0
35.0 35.0
31.5 31.5
28.0 28.0
24.5 24.5
21.0 21.0
17.5 17.5
14.0 60o 14.0
58o
10.5 10.5
7.0 7.0
40o 50o
(c) 3.5 (d) 3.5 (f)
0.0 0.0

Figure 3. Displacement distribution obtained from PIV analysis (prototype scale, mm) (a) Case 1
(b) Case 4 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3 and retaining wall-soil model in Case 1 (e) before experiment (f)
after experiment

It is apparent from PIV results that the most cases give several slip surfaces in the backfill. As
illustrated in Fig. 2 (e) and (f), after applied shaking motions, a clear slip surface can be virtually
observed from the original picture in Case 1, while the others needed the PIV results to estimate the
slip surface. In the cases with the D-type clay, as displayed in Fig. 2 (a) and (b), PIV results reveal
only one slip surface. In Case 1 with backfill cohesion equals to 14.5 kPa, the slip surface angle is
considerably larger than in Case 4 with backfill cohesion equals to 6.4 kPa. While in Cases 2 and 3
with Inagi sand, as illustrated by Fig. 2 (c) and (d), two significant slip surfaces can be estimated.
The steeper slip surface in both cases reveals after the appearance of the slip surface with the smaller
angle. However, the case with more cohesion, Case 3, has the larger slip surface angle.
According to these observations, the amount of cohesion in backfill significantly affects the
formation of the failure plane in the backfill. With the same backfill condition, the larger cohesion
tends to give the steeper slip surface. Also, it is evident that the results obtained here agree with the
previous study by Nakajima et al. (2018) in 1g model experiments. Their study on failure mechanism
by giving a series of seismic motions revealed that the larger cohesion gave the slightly steeper failure
plane.
The study on this failure mechanism in the backfill could be one of the good evidences to interpret
the dynamic soil-wall interaction mechanism. Since if the slip surface angle is estimated, the soil
mass exerts a push behind the retaining wall can be estimated. For further study, by interpreting these
 2019 Taiwan-Japan Joint Symposium on the Advancement of Urban Earthquake Hazard Mitigation Technology

PIV results, the understanding of the retaining wall movement and also earth pressure acting behind
the retaining wall is expected.

4. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The earlier study on dynamic small-scale soil model in 1g condition (Nakajima et al., 2018)
revealed that backfill cohesion has significantly affected the shape and angle of slip surface. Based
on this result, we expected that this behavior should show the same trend in the 30g centrifuge model.
It is apparent from PIV results that the most cases, after applied shaking motions, give several slip
surfaces in the backfill. In our test, the angle of slip surface is considerably larger in the case with the
larger backfill cohesion, which agrees with the previous study.
Although we focus on PIV analysis of slip surface angle in this paper, we hope that this study
could be used for understanding of dynamic active earth pressure behind retaining wall, retaining
wall displacement, and dynamic soil-wall interaction.

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