M. Khodabakhshi
H. Salehzadeh
M.H. Baziar

Port structures include a variety of structures such as quay walls, breakwaters, and bridge foundations at the waterfront. These structures may be classified, from a geotechnical perspective, into retaining walls, and deep and shallow foundations that the focus of this paper is on the caisson type quay wall. A gravity type quay wall is made of a caisson or other gravity retaining structure placed on the subsoil as a foundation. Seaport facilities are commonly constructed on poorly consolidated natural deposit or fills so that they are highly vulnerable to liquefaction and lateral spread. Past earthquakes demonstrated that the properties of soils are one of the important factors that have significant effects on the seismic behavior of port structures such as quay walls. In this paper, to evaluate the mechanism of the damage on quay walls, a case study of caisson type quay wall that damaged during the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake has been analyzed by PLAXIS. Then the influence of width and geometry of caisson, soil properties and etc on the residual deformation of quay walls during the earthquake were assessed. The typical damage was observed in Kobe, seaward horizontal displacements of caisson walls were around 5m at maximum and 3m on average and around 1-2m settled. The results of this investigation showed good agreement between the numerical simulations and observed data. It is concluded that the dynamic properties, permeability and friction angle of backfill material are among the most influential factors that indicating seismic performance of a quay wall system.

quay wall, earthquake, Kobe