Comparison on seismic response of rectangular closed diaphragm wall and pile group in sloping liquefiable deposit

Abstract

This paper presents fully coupled solid-fluid nonlinear dynamic finite element (FE) model on OpenSees platform to study the response of rectangular closed diaphragm wall (RCDW) subjected to earthquakes. Soil seismic behavior was simulated by the PDMY02 soil model available in OpenSees and soil-RCDW interaction was captured by the zero length elements with PyLiq1, TzLiq1 and QzSimple1materials. Then, the FE numerical model was validated by data measured from centrifuge experiments. The validated numerical model was used to investigate the different seismic response between RCDW and pile group in sloping liquefiable deposit. The numerical simulation results showed that: a) Compared with pile group, RCDW can mitigate liquefaction in soil core subjected to earthquakes; b) RCDW was able to resist soil lateral spreading more effectively; c) The shear strain of soil core was restrain by RCDW which resulted in slow generation of excess pore water pressure. Therefore, RCDW had the advantage of liquefaction mitigation; d) Pile group had more deformation displacement, RCDW had more rigid displacement, resulted from the different stiffness and structural integrity between RCDW and pile group; e) Finally, it can be concluded that RCDW may be more suitable choice applied in the sloping liquefiable ground.