In recent years, new seismic design methods for gravity retaining
walls, based on the earthquake-induced permanent displacement of the wail,
have been proposed. These methods generally ignore the effects of ground motion
amplification in the backfill on the seismic behavior of the wall. In the
present paper, results obtained with a finite element model capable of taking
into account the amplification of ground motion in the backfill, while computing
permanent distortions, are presented. Implications of these results for design
are also considered.