Responses of a cantilever retaining wall under multiple earthquake sequences

The seismic behaviors of retaining walls were evaluated considering only a single earthquake. However, aftershock or foreshock ground motions can occasionally be as strong as mainshock ground motions and can aggravate damage to structures. This study investigated the seismic responses of a cantilever retaining wall under earthquake sequences by performing a series of finite-difference-based numerical simulations. We collected a suite of mainshock-aftershock and foreshock-mainshock sequential ground motions, which were used as the input ground motions in the numerical simulations. This study focused on revealing the differences in wall responses under a single earthquake and multiple earthquake sequences, considering a wide range of ground motion intensities. The relative wall movements caused by mainshock-aftershock and foreshock-mainshock sequential ground motions can be much larger than those caused by a single mainshock motion. In addition, the sequence itself had the effect of increasing the relative wall movements under strong sequential ground motions. However, the effects of the aftershock and foreshock motions on the wall responses were insignificant under weak sequential ground motions. •Responses of a cantilever retaining wall are studied by numerical simulations.•nput motions are collected from actual MS-AS and FS-MS sequences.•RWD by earthquake sequences can be much larger than that by single earthquakes.•Strong earthquake sequences themselves have the effect of increasing RWD.•The effects of AS and FS on RWD are insignificant under weak earthquake sequences.