On the Seismic Vulnerability of Quay Walls: The role of Soil Nonlinearity and Liquefaction Induced Soil Flow

Abstract

Port facilities, and especially gravity quay walls, are particularly vulnerable to earthquake related hazards. Even when the soil is not prone to liquefaction, seismic strain-induced nonlinearity could be a major destabilizing factor that may lead to large deformations and failure conditions. Employing a well-documented case history of a wharf liquefaction-induced failure from Kobe 1995 earthquake, the role of soil nonlinearity on the seismic response of the quay wall RC-5 in Rokko island is unraveled. This is achieved by conducting drained and uncoupled undrained-consolidation effective stress analysis by using the frequently applied in practice liquefaction constitutive models UBC-Sand and PM4-Sand, both available in PLAXIS material library. The computed response for the two aforementioned constitutive models is compared with each other revealing the immense vulnerability of gravity quay walls to strong earthquake loading even in the absence of soil liquefaction or high excess pore water pressures.