Seismic behaviour of a micropile-reinforced cut slope behind a cantilever retaining wall

Abstract The micropile-cantilever retaining wall (CRW) combined retaining structures are widely used in slope reinforcement design. While the landslide thrust distributed between the micropiles and the CRW remains unclear. In this work, the seismic response of a micropile-reinforced cut slope behind a CRW are studied by means of a centrifuge shaking-table model test. The proportion of slope sliding force borne by CRW and micropiles under multistage earthquakes is revealed. When the backfill has a large slope angle and loads are applied to the upper part of the slope crest, the dynamic earth pressure coefficient is much larger than that when the backfill surface is horizontal and no additional loads are applied. The current data show that the residual bending moment accumulates significantly on the CRW and micropiles after an earthquake, which must be considered during the seismic design of the micropile-CRW combined retaining structures.