Selected aspects of designing deep excavations

• Main Authors: Obrzud Rafał F., Hartmann Sébastien, Podleś Krzysztof
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2016-09-01
• Series: Studia Geotechnica et Mechanica
• Subjects: deep excavation; serviceability limit state; steady-state analysis; consolidation analysis; undrained behavior analysis; zsoil pc
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/sgem-2016-0024

This paper analyzes two approaches to serviceability limit state (SLS) verification for the deep excavation boundary value problem. The verification is carried out by means of the finite element (FE) method with the aid of the commercial program ZSoil v2014. In numerical simulations, deep excavation in non-cohesive soil is supported with a diaphragm wall. In the first approach, the diaphragm wall is modeled with the Hookean material assuming reduced average stiffness and possible concrete cracking. The second approach is divided into two stages. In the first stage, the wall is modeled by defining its stiffness with the highest nominal Young’s modulus. The modulus makes it possible to find design bending moments which are used to compute the minimal design cross-section reinforcement for the retaining structure. The computed reinforcement is then used in a non-linear structural analysis which is viewed as the “actual” SLS verification.