A Simplified Approach for Estimation of Braced Wall Deflection During Excavation in Soft Clay

Abstract

The construction of braced excavations in urban areas requires control of surrounding ground movements since excessive ground movements damage adjacent properties. Reasonably good amount of work on numerical analysis and field studies on the estimation of ground surface settlement adjacent to excavation have been reported in the literature. However, theoretical studies or mathematical modeling have not been well addressed in the literature. This paper presents a simplified design approach for estimation of wall deflection where diaphragm wall is assumed as continuous beam. Earth pressure in the backfill side is taken as load, exerted on the beam and strut load along with earth pressure in cut side represents support of the beam. Peck’s earth pressure diagram for braced wall is used for load calculation while Terzaghi’s equation is considered to derive coefficient of modulus of subgrade reaction. Applicability of the proposed approach has been verified by comparing the estimated values of wall deflection with the measured values of three different case studies.