Design Models for Stability Analysis of Hunchbacked Gravity Quay Walls

Gravity hunchbacked is a common type of quay wall in construction of small ports. However these types of quay wall are relatively cost effective and easy to perform, but because of their considerable weight, there are some problems due to the stability of their foundation. In the region with high seismic activity, the problems due to stability of these types of quay wall will be pronounced, mainly because of enhancement in the soil lateral pressure behind walls as well as the effect of hydrodynamic forces. In this paper the effect of wall's geometry, Shear strength of backfill and foundation material and the level of Peak Ground Acceleration, PGA, on the stability of wall has been investigated. For a range of wall’s dimensions, internal friction angle of back fill and undrained shear strength of foundation and PGA, safety factors against over-turning, sliding and bearing capacity were calculated and were correlated with the input parameters using a genetic algorithm based regression program.

Keywords:

Quay wall , Stability , Sliding , Overturning , Bearing Capacity