Studying the influence of the earthquake on different structures
interacting with soil has become a priority, due to the devastating
damage caused by the earthquake on these types of constructions. In this
book, the effects of the dynamic load on earth retaining walls have been
studied. In particular, the aim of this study is to develop fragility
curves for these structures. They describe the probability of a
structure being damaged beyond a specific damage state for several
levels of ground shaking. In this respect, several numerical models were
built to carry out advanced numerical simulations by using a plain
strain commercial software FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua),
based on the finite difference method. Models of wall used in analyses
are trapezoid shape gravity earth retaining wall with different height.
For each wall two main configurations of backfill have been used: in the
first one, the surface of backfill is horizontal while in the second one
the backfill is inclined of 30°. The geometry of each wall satisfies the
safety static condition according to the Italian Technical Code
prescription.