Field measurements and numerical studies of the behaviour of anchored sheet pile walls constructed with excavating and backfilling procedures

Abstract

To fully understand the behaviour of an anchored sheet pile wall structure, a long-term field measurement was carried out during excavating and backfilling construction. The total lateral earth pressures, sheet pile wall deflections, anchor forces and groundwater levels were observed. The field measurements showed that the soil excavation has a greater effect than backfilling procedure on the anchored sheet pile deflection and that the obtained lateral earth pressures were less than the classic Rankine earth pressures. Moreover, there was a long-term increase in the earth pressure and the deflection of the anchored sheet pile wall after construction, while the anchor forces decreased during the post-construction process. The numerical method was employed to simulate the excavating and backfilling processes, and the results were compared with the field measurements. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to investigate the mechanism of soil-structure interaction system. The deflection of the sheet pile increased with the reduction in the number of anchors and tubular piles. The smaller the anchor force is, the more deflections the sheet pile and tubular pile experienced. The results indicated that the lateral earth pressure from the soil drives the deformation of the anchored sheet pile and that the soil movement acted as a “damper” to slow down the deformation processes by resisting the deformation of the tubular pile in the soil-structure interaction system. The overall investigation presented here provides a reference for the design and construction of anchored sheet pile walls.