Experiences from previous major earthquakes including the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake and the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake showed that ports and their structural components are exposed to a great seismic risk. Considering the importance of port facilities to the national economy, engineers should pay great attention to the seismic performance of such structures. Different improvement methods for quay wall structures are available. Previous studies showed that the geofoam compressible inclusions and tire crumb-sand mixtures (TC) are successful to reduce the effects of earthquake-induced dynamic forces against rigid earth retaining wall structures and capable of attenuating the dynamic loads. The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the two different lightweight cushion materials to mitigate the potential seismic hazards of the quay walls using the finite element software. This study covers the geofoam layer inclusion and tire waste-sand cushion techniques in a comparative manner. Two different earthquake records were used for the dynamic analysis and the results were evaluated and compared by means of the effectiveness of the proposed cushions under seismic loadings. Results showed that geofoam inclusion against the quay wall structure can successfully reduced the earthquakeinduced dynamic earth pressures and permanent displacements whereas it was revealed that the proposed TC cushion layer in this study has a negative influence on the dynamic stability of the quay wall model for the applied dynamic motions.
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