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Secant Pile PDF
Secant Pile PDF
Secant Pile Wall Design & Analysis example
DeepXcav software program (Version 2011)
(ParatiePlus within Italy)
Document Version 1.0
Issued: 13‐January‐2012
Deep Excavation LLC
www.deepexcavation.com
We are going to design a 12 m excavation between two secant pile walls. The distance between the two
walls is 8 m. There wall depth will be 16 m.
The minimum required dewatering level is ‐1 m below maximum excavation level.
In this model we will use strut supports, Metric Pipes with Diameter = 0.6 m.
Concrete cube strength: 40 N/mm2, so we will use concrete C 32/40.
Figure 1 presents the construction site and Figure 2 presents the Design Section AA, which is marked in
Figure 1 and will be analyzed. Tables 1 and 2 present the soil properties and the wall properties
respectively.
Figure 1: Site plan and Design Section AA.
Figure 2: Design Section AA.
Table 1: Soil parameters.
Design parameter
Soil
φ’ C’ γ γ KX KY ELOAD ERELOAD
Layer
(deg) (kPa) (kN/m3) (kN/m3) (m/s) (m/s) (kN/m2) (kN/m2)
MDS 34 0 19 19 1.15 E‐5 1.15 E‐5 30000 90000
VDS 41 0 19.5 19.5 1.15 E‐5 1.15 E‐5 60000 180000
Table 2: Wall parameters.
Pile diameter (D) 0.6 m
Pile spacing 0.6 m
Pile length 16 m
Concrete C 32/40
Steel S 500
Rebars D25
Number of rebars per pile 10
Shear reinforcement Spiral Reinf
D10
Shear reinforcement spacing 250 mm
Now we will present how this model can be designed using DeepXcav. In DeepXcav we can add
construction stages by pressing the Add Stage button in the Model tab.
Stage 0:
First, we modify our soil layers. In the General tab of DeepXcav we press the button (Figure 3).
In the dialog that appears we choose to change the general elevation to the elevation 7.2 m, and to
apply this change to all boreholes (Figure 4). Next, we press the button in the model tab in
order to add a second wall to the model (Figure 5). We right click on each wall and we choose to
Deactivate it for this stage.
Figure 3: The General tab of DeepXcav and the Move model Elevations button.
Figure 4: The Move Elevations dialog.
Figure 5: The two walls, deactivated in Stage 0.
Next, we will apply the soil properties. To do so, we go to the Model tab of DeepXcav and we press the
button in order to modify our stratigraphy. When we do so, the Edit Borings and Soils
dialog appears (Figure 6). Here we choose to add a new soil with the top elevation of 0. We press the
Edit button next to each soil layer in order to edit the layer properties. Then the Edit soil data dialog
appears (Figures 7 and 8).
Figure 6: The Soil Layers dialog.
Figure 7: The Edit soil data dialog.
Figure 8: Soil model and Loading – Reloading Elasticity parameters.
Figure 9: The Edit wall data dialog.
Figure 10: The Edit wall section properties dialog.
Figure 11: The concrete and rebar properties.
Stage 1:
In this stage we will modify the soil inclinations in order to design our model. To create the bench
surfaces, we right click on our model, first on the left side of the left wall and next on the right side of
the right wall, and we choose to “Set left bench surface” and “Set right bench surface” respectively
(Figure 12). Then the Modify surface section dialog appears, and we apply our preferences (Figure 13).
Figure 12: The available surface options.
Figure 13: The modify surface section dialog.
Next, in the Model tab we choose to excavate between the 2 walls to the Elevation 4 m (Figure 14) and
by right clicking on each wall we choose to activate it. Figure 15 presents the model of this stage.
Figure 14: Model tab: Excavate between the two walls to Elevation 4 m.
Figure 15: Model, Stage 1.
Stages 2 to 8:
In these stages we excavate and apply the strut supports step by step. To excavate, we change the Layer
elevation between the 2 walls (Figure 14). We are careful to keep the water table at least 1 m below the
excavation. Table 3 presents the soil and water table elevation in each construction stage.
Table 3: Soil and Water table elevations.
In the stage that follows each excavation, we add a strut support to the model. To do so, we click on the
button in the toolbar on the left side of the screen, and then we click first on the left and next on
the right wall. In the dialog that appears we can define the strut properties (Figure 16). Table 4 presents
the strut and excavation levels when each strut is first installed.
Table 4: Soil and Water table elevations.
Stage Soil Elevation (m)
Stage 3 3.7
Stage 5 ‐0.8
Stage 7 ‐4.3
Figure 16: Edit Strut properties dialog.
In Stage 3 we add a surface load on the left wall of 15 kPa. To do so, we click on the tool button on
the left vertical tool bar. Then we click on the left point and next to the surface point next to the wall.
When we do so, the dialog on Figure 16B appears. Here we select the "Treat as surface load option" and
change the vertical surcharge intensity to 15kPa on both point 1 (left) and point 2 (right).
Figure 16B: Surcharge dialog
In the Analysis tab of DeepXcav we apply our analysis options (Figure 17).
We choose to use the Beam on Elastoplastic Foundations Analysis Mode (non‐linear)
We choose to apply wall friction as a percentage of soil friction on both walls (66%)
Figure 17: Analysis options.
Finally, we go to the Design tab of DeepXcav and we apply a Wall Safety Factor of 1.5 (Figure 18).
Figure 18: Wall Safety Factor.
Stage 9:
We add this last stage to the model in order to change the water behavior to a full flownet for this stage
(in all other stages we will keep a Simplified flow). In the Analysis tab, we choose to use a flownet and to
apply this change only to the current Stage (Figure 19).
Figure 19: Flownet.
After we perform the calculations we can see the results in the results tab of DeepXcav. We can see
various results for each construction stage:
Wall moments
Figure 20: Wall moment diagrams for stage 8 and 9 respectively (red line is wall capacity).
Wall shear forces
Figure 21: Wall shear diagrams for stage 8 and 9 respectively (dark red line is wall shear capacity).
Figure 22: Wall displacements for stage 8 and 9 respectively.
Effective vertical stresses
Figure 23: Effective vertical stress for stage 7 and 8 respectively.
Figure 24: Water pressure shadings.
Embedment Safety Factors
Figure 25: Embedment safety factors.
From the results above, we come to the following conclusions:
a. The shear capacity of the wall is not enough for this model, so we suggest reducing the shear
reinforcement spacing.
b. The wall embedment is not enough, so we should increase the pile length.
c. We should increase the dewatering depth beneath the excavation surface.
We will increase the wall depth to 22 m.
We will decrease the shear reinforcement spacing to 125 mm and shear reinforcement diameter
to D12.
We will set the dewatering level to the elevation ‐10 m for the stages 8 and 9.