Soil Creep Effect on Time-Dependent Deformation of Deep Braced Excavation

This paper describes recent advances in the effect of soil creep on the time-dependent deformation of deep braced excavation. The effect of soil creep is generally investigated using the observational method and the plain-strain numerical simulation method. The observational method is more applicable for deep braced excavations in soft clays constructed using the top-down method. The plain-strain numerical simulation method can be conveniently used for parametric analysis, but it is unable to capture the spatial characteristics of soil creep effect on lateral wall deflections and ground movements. The additional lateral wall deflections and ground movements that are generated due to the soil creep effect can account for as large as 30% of the total displacements, which highlights the importance of considering the effect of soil creep in deep braced excavations through soft clays. The magnitude of the displacements due to soil creep depends on various factors, such as excavation depth, elapsed period, unsupported length, and strut stiffness. Parametric analyses have indicated several effective measures that can be taken in practice to mitigate the detrimental effect of soil creep on the deformation of deep braced excavation. Based on the literature review, potential directions of the related future research work are discussed. This paper should be beneficial for both researchers and engineers focusing on mitigating the adverse effect of soil creep on the stability of deep braced excavations.

Estimating the Basal Heave Stability of Narrow Braced Excavations

Engineering practices indicate that narrow braced excavation exhibits a clear size effect. However, the slip circle method in the design codes fails to consider the effect of excavation width on basal heave stability, causing waste for narrow excavation. In this paper, numerical simulation for basal heave failure of excavation with different widths was performed by FEM with SSRT (shear strength reduction technique). The results revealed that the failure mechanism of narrow excavation is different from the complete slip circle mode. In addition, the safety factor decreases increasingly slowly as the excavation widens and stabilizes when approaching the critical width. Subsequently, the corresponding computation model was presented, and an improved SCM (slip circle method) was further developed. Finally, the engineering case illustrated that it can effectively optimize the design, which exhibits clear superiority.

Influence of Pre-Stressing on Tieback Retaining Wall for Sandy Soils Excavations

Pre-stressed ground anchor systems or tieback systems are commonly used at wide and irregular-shaped excavations, with the advantage of lower cost and ease of construction compared to the braced excavations, but they come with the drawback on permits for excavations near buildings and tunnels. Research on tieback systems in sands was generally conducted. However, the studies on the correlation between the retaining wall deflection and pre-stress force are few. The objectives of this paper are to study the influence of pre-stress force, depth of excavation, wall embedment length, and soil shear strength that is represented by soil friction angle on the deflection and soil pressure acting on the retaining wall. The parametric study was conducted on an excavation in sand using the finite element method with the Hardening soil model. The results showed that a 50 kN/m increase in pre-stress force reduced the wall deflection on top of the wall by 0.005–0.083% of excavation depth. However, the pre-stressing influence in reducing wall deflection at excavations became less significant along with the sand density increase due to higher friction angle contribution to excavation stability. Moreover, the pre-stress force needed for stabilization of the wall with long embedment length is smaller than those on the wall with shorter embedment length, since the embedment length increase of 0.25 times of excavation depth reduces wall top deflection by 0.002–0.095% of excavation depth. Also, the increase of soil density reduces the need for wall embedment length, so at dense sand, the embedment length of 0.5 times of excavation depth is sufficient to support the excavation.

Model Uncertainties in Foundation Design

The book focuses on providing a foundation designer information on the model factor and its statistics for conventional foundation types such as shallow foundations, driven piles, and drilled shafts as well as special foundations such as spudcans and helical piles. Besides foundations, the book also provides information for other geostructures such as mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls, soil nail walls, pipes and anchors, slopes, and braced excavations.