Closed-form solution for excavation-induced ground settlement profile in clay

Abstract

Prediction of ground movement adjacent to an excavation is critically important, especially in urban areas, to prevent any potential damage of neighboring buildings. In the present study, a closed-form solution for prediction of excavation-induced ground settlement profile is proposed based on elastic displacement theory. Superposition method is employed to adapt the basic solution for translation wall deflection mode to general wall deflection mode. By assuming the wall deflection in braced excavation to be subject to a piecewise quadratic function, the displacement boundary of the problem is determined. An easy-to-use explicit solution is then developed. The validity of and applicability of the proposed solution is verified with existing analytical solution, finite-element model and six well-documented case records. The ground settlement profiles predicted on the basis of the new approach are in good agreement with reported settlement data. The results show that the proposed solution can be used as a feasible approach to obtain ground settlement profile in clay.