Centrifuge and theoretical study of the seismic response of anchored steel sheet pile walls in dry sand

Displacement-based approaches have been proven to be effective for the seismic design of gravity retaining structures. However, application of these methods to embedded flexible walls, such as anchored steel sheet pile (ASSP) walls, is still an open issue, as the factors affecting the accumulation of permanent displacements of these systems are not fully understood. This paper presents the results of four dynamic centrifuge tests on small-scale models of ASSP walls in uniform dry sand. The experimental results showed that ASSP walls can experience different failure mechanisms depending on their geometry and on the magnitude of accumulated displacements. During the earthquake, the system exhibits an overall increase of its seismic capacity, caused by: (a) progressive mobilisation of the soil passive strength; (b) sand densification; (c) rotation of the walls; and (d) reduction of the retained height. Accounting for these effects in pseudo-static limit equilibrium solutions improved the predictions of both the critical failure mechanism and the maximum internal forces in the structural members. Moreover, it allowed development of an efficient analytical tool for the prediction of the seismic permanent displacements of these systems, based on Newmark's sliding block approach.