On the seismic response of a flexible wall retaining a viscous poroelastic soil

A simple and reliable method is presented for the seismic analysis of a flexible wall retaining a layer of fluid-saturated viscous and poroelastic soil. A viscous version of the linear poroelastic Biot model is adopted for the description of the soil dissipative behavior. The effects of the wall flexibility and the mechanical properties of the soil on the amplitude and distribution of the pressures and the associated forces acting on the wall under harmonic loadings are firstly analyzed. The pseudostatic response is then recovered as a particular case for a vanishing small frequency of excitation. Finally, the response of the soil–wall system to generic seismic excitation is obtained using the Discrete Fourier Transform (FFT) method through the superposition of the contribution of each harmonic component of the ground acceleration spectrum. The analysis of the dynamic response obtained for different geometries of the wall and mechanical soil behavior allowed the relative importance of the various parameters involved in the seismic response of the system to be assessed.