Dynamic interaction between the soil and an anchored sheet pile during seismic excitation

Abstract

Abstract A subdomain approach for dynamic soil–structure interaction is proposed for the linear elastic seismic analysis of an anchored sheet pile, retaining a horizontally layered soil on rigid bedrock. A hybrid solution technique is used, employing a finite element formulation for the generalized sheet pile, a thin layer formulation for the soil and a direct stiffness formulation for the tieback; the displacement vectors of the sheet pile and the soil are decomposed, using the eigenmodes of the sheet pile and the propagating or decaying modes in the soil. The discretization can be limited to the interface(s), where pointwise continuity of the displacements is enforced, whereas a weak variational formulation is used for the stress equilibrium. The solution technique is illustrated by means of a numerical example, where the harmonic response of a flexible anchored sheet pile is considered and compared to the case where no tieback is present. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.