Dynamic soil normal stresses on side wall of a subway station

Dynamic soil normal stress is still not clear or not certain for many engineering designers and science researchers. As one of the important loads, the accurate magnitude and distribution of dynamic soil normal stressess are not well known and remain a question worth discussing. Most research on this topic has focused on rigid or flexible retaining walls so far. Limiting-equilibrium Mononobe-Okabe type solutions is widely used in designing the above rigid or flexible retaining walls. Less research is conducted on other structures, such as underground subway stations. Obviously, these two kinds of structures have different mechanical characteristics, which will lead to their different dynamic soil normal stresses. To extend knowledge about dynamic soil normal stresses, this study would investigate the characteristics of dynamic soil normal stresses for a subway structure experiencing sinusoidal ground motions. The findings prove that dynamic soil normal stress distributions are complex and it might be not reasonable to continue using M-O method in some structures like subway stations. Finally, the study also investigated the influences of acceleration amplitudes and frequencies of inputting motions on dynamic soil normal stresses. Some valuable conclusion were achieved.