Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
22
Performance and Analysis of Arifiye
Overpass Reinforced Earth Walls
During the 1999 Kocaeli (Turkey)
Earthquake
C. Guney Olgun and James R. Martin II
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A.
ABSTRACT
Following the August 1999 earthquake in Kocaeli, Turkey (M W ΒΌ
7.4), the
authors performed field investigations in the affected area to document the
performance of improved soil sites and mechanically stabilized embank-
ments. The seismic performance of a pair of conventional reinforced earth
walls constructed of steel strips and compacted granular backfill is
described here. The walls performed well, suffering only minor damage,
despite being subjected to severe ground shaking and large ground
displacements. Static and dynamic numerical analyses were performed to
investigate the factors contributing to this performance. The analyses were
successful in predicting the observed wall behavior. The results suggest that
conventionally designed reinforced earth walls perform relatively well
during strong ground shaking and that displacement may be the controlling
criterion as opposed to shear failure/collapse.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search