Study on important factors of quay walls deformation under seismic loading

Harbor structures, such as quay walls, bridges, break waters, dolphins and etc. are divided into retaining walls and shallow and deep foundations due to geotechnical aspects. Gravity type foundations such as caissons may be affected from many geotechnical factors like soil properties and liquefaction sensitivity on earthquake damages. In this paper, ABAQUS is used to determine the mechanism of damage of 1995 Hyogoken – Nanbu earthquake on the caisson quay wall. In addition, the effects of geometry of quay wall, properties of soil etc. on quay wall evaluated. As it was seen in Kobe, this numerical modeling is also offers 3 meters displacement in average for caisson walls. It shows that the most influential factors are permeability, friction angle and dynamic properties of the backfill.