balanced horizontal forces applied to the wall.
Top down exca­ More recently, a semi-empirical procedure for estimating
vation in front of the wall is simulated by setting spring forces
progressively to zero until the final depth of excavation is
reached, and at the same time the spring stiffnesses are progres­
sively halved, to model the reduction in support on the excavated
side of the wall. As a result of the load imbalance, horizontal
wall displacement and bending take place. Various stages of the
construction sequence are usually analysed, and propping or an­
choring is simulated by the addition of further discrete springs at
the required stiffnesses and levels.
The major criticism o f this approach is that a W inkler model
for the soil may not be reasonable, as it cannot capture some of
the more important aspects of soil behaviour. Although the
model can be extended by assuming non-linear springs, there is
still the difficulty of specifying the precise nature of the spring
behaviour in practice, and the very serious limitation that such a
spring model does not adequately represent shear transfer
through the soil. W ith a W inkle r spring representation of the
soil, the wall is the only component providing distribution of
forces. It is well known, for example, that by judicious choice of
the spring constants this type of model can be made to provide
adequate predictions of soil-structure interaction when the load­
ing is highly concentrated, but generally it provides poor esti­
mates of the structural behaviour for more highly distributed
forms o f loading. Earth pressure loading on the wall is generally
distributed in nature, so the use of the W inkler-type models must
be used with caution. Several investigators, e.g., Brooks and
Spence (1992) and Yang (1997), have compared predictions ob­
tained using the W inkle r approach with others based on a con­
tinuum representation o f the soil. These studies indicate that
generally lower stiffnesses must be used in the W inkler springs
models to achieve displacements comparable with those pre­
dicted by the continuum models.
More sophisticated and complex analyses, based on either the
finite element or finite difference methods and continuum mod­
els of soil behaviour, are now used commonly in the design of
larger retaining walls, particularly in cases where displacements
around the excavation may be critical. A variety o f commercial
and proprietary (in-house) computer codes exist for this purpose.
A brie f review o f some of the commercially available computer
codes has been given in chapter 11 of Ciayton et al. (1993).
They provide a list o f the major issues in modelling of this type
and discussion on the important choices to be made in terms of
constitutive models to represent the soil behaviour and parameter
determination. The more complex computer methods are nor­
mally used for particular case studies, and as such it has not been
usual to present the results of such studies in the form o f gener­
ally applicable design charts. An exception, that has significant
relevance to geotechnical practice, is described in the following
section.
7.3.3 Design methods based on displacement control
Field data, particularly for soft and medium clays show that the
movements of excavation support systems are not a constant
proportion of excavation depth. Generally, yielding is induced in
the soil mass beneath and surrounding an excavation as it is
deepened. One o f the early attempts to take account of soil
yielding and the consequent movements in the soil and the
structural support system in the design of support systems was
suggested by Peck (1969) who correlated the observed move­
ments against the stability number, defined as:
N =^ ~ (7.5)
c such as structural engineering. This issue has been addressed re­
in which H is the depth of the excavation, y is the unit weight of
the soil and c is the undrained shear strength o f the clay. It w ill
be recognized that the parameter N is inversely related to the
factor of safety against basal heave in an excavation in undrained
clay. An example of the type of design guidance provided by
such correlations is indicated in Figure 7.2.
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movements of excavation support systems in clays, using the
factor of safety against basal heave, F, as a principal element,
was proposed by Mana and Clough (1981). As a first step, they
correlated wall movements with F for excavations supported by
braced sheetpile walls of average stiffness. The correlation was
based on both observed field data and finite element results.
M odification factors were provided through a series of charts to
account for the effects of parameters such as wall stiffness, strut
stiffness, width of excavation and preload. Figure 7.3 (taken
from Clough et al., 1989) presents an extension of the ideas of
Mana and Clough, where the maximum lateral wall movement,
Sim , >s linked to both F and a term defining the stiffness of the
support system stiffness and the average vertical spacing be­
tween the lateral props.
Clough et al. (1989) made the important point that the results
in Figure 7.3 are based upon average conditions and good
workmanship. They are also based on the assumption that
movements that develop when the wall is in the cantilever stage
before supports are applied to the wall are a small portion of the
total movements. I f this is not true then, according to Clough et
al. the chart w ill underestimate the actual movement.
Clough and others, including Goldberg et al. (1976) have also
examined movement around supported excavations and devel­
oped design charts allowing preliminary estimates of ground
movements to be made. Examples of these design charts for
clays are given in Figures 7.4 and 7.5. Settlement envelopes be­
hind walls in sand suggested by Goldberg et al. (1976) are
shown in Figure 7.6.
It is important to realise that design methods such as con­
tained in Figures 7.3 to 7.6 should only be used to provide pre­
liminary estimates of ground and support movements. They do
not replace the need for monitoring in construction of this type,
in order to provide early warning of difficulties and to allow time
for design adjustments to be enacted, as required in the observa­
tional method. Potentially, better estimates of ground and wall
movements should be possible using complex numerical tech­
niques such as the finite element method. However, with these
sophisticated prediction tools, great care in their use is also re­
quired. Further, meaningful and useable guidelines for their use
in practice are still not available. This importance of this issue is
illustrated in the following section.
7.4 Validation and calibration o f computer models
The importance of soil-structure interaction in problems involv­
ing excavated retaining structures is now widely recognised. Ad­
dressing the interaction problem almost invariably requires the
use of numerical models employing load-path techniques in or­
der to follow the excavation and installation process and to keep
track of the developing non-linear behaviour and consequently
the changing nature of the soil-structure interaction. However, to
date, relatively little attention has been paid in the literature to
the important issue of validation and reliability of these numeri­
cal models, and in particular the specific software that enables
their implementation. The work by Schweiger (1991, 1997,
1998, 2000) forms one of the limited studies on the subject of
model validation. There is now a strong need to define proce­
dures and guidelines to arrive at reliable numerical methods and,
more importantly, input parameters which represent accurately
the strength and stiffness properties of the ground in situ.
Benchmarking is of great importance in geotechnical engi­
neering, probably more so than in other engineering disciplines,
cently in the literature (e.g., Carter et al., 2000). Obviously, there
is currently considerable scope for developers and users of nu­
merical models to exercise their personal preferences when
tackling geotechnical problems. From a practical point of view,
it is therefore very difficult to prove the validity of many calcu­
lated results because of the numerous modelling assumptions re­
quired. So far, no clear guidelines exist, and thus results for a