Reliability-based analysis of braced excavation in unsaturated soils considering conditional spatial variability

Abstract

This study presents a practical approach for reliability analysis of braced excavation in spatially varied unsaturated soils. To take full advantage of the measured data, random fields are conditionally simulated and implemented in a finite element analysis. In this approach, the uncertainties involved in the soil-structure interaction are considered by performing the analysis for perfectly rough and perfectly smooth interfaces leading to upper and lower bounds on the full range of solutions. To assess the influence of the unsaturated condition on the braced retaining system (i.e., wall and struts), the probabilistic analysis of excavation is carried out with and without considering suction. The results demonstrate that applying the unsaturated state not only causes significant changes in the statistical parameters of wall responses; it also moves the location where the maximum values occurred.