Mitigation of hunchbacked gravity quay wall displacement due to dynamic loading using shaking table tests

Abstract

Five reduced-scale shaking table tests have been performed to investigate the deformation behavior of a block type quay wall under strong earthquakes. The quay wall was resting on a high relative density inclined seabed. The underlying seabed inclination and bottom block slopes have been considered as two parameters for mitigating the wall displacement. The experimental results indicated that the dominant mode of the wall failure under strong base acceleration was the sliding of the wall. Increasing the bottom block inclination (from 0 to 10°) significantly decreased the lateral displacement and the backfill settlements, which can increase the safety of port facilities. Since the high bottom inclination can cause the wall to overturn, a 7-degree angle was selected as the optimal degree for the presented wall model. Furthermore, it was observed that, making the bottom block inclined, without the seabed being inclined, did not effectively reduce the wall displacement.