Liu, Deng and Chu (eds) © 2008 Science Press Beijing and Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg

Geotechnical Engineering for Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation

THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEM ANALYSIS ON MECHANICAL

CHARACTERISTICS OF DEPING METRO STATION
FOUNDATION PIT DURING PROJECT EXCAVATION

Youliang Chen
Department ofCivil Engineering, University ofShanghai for Science and Technology,
Shanghai 200093, China

Lebin Yang, Jingxue Liu

Department ofCivil Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200072, China

RafigAzzam
Department ofEngineering Geology and Hydrogeology, R WTH Aachen University

Controlling the displacements of foundation pit walls and supporting structures is one of the
most effective measures for ensuring safety of foundation pit construction. In this paper, the
three-dimensional displacement field of Deping Station foundation pit, which is part of
Shanghai Track Traffic Line 6 project, is computed by means offinite element method (FEM)
and ANSYS software. Firstly, the element types and constitutive equations are selected.
Secondly, the displacements and internal forces ofsupporting structures and soil medium are
computed and the final computed results are analyzed. Finally, the sensitivity of computed
results to dimensional variation of supporting structures and value variation of soil
parameters is analyzed. The research result of current paper is very helpful for geotechnical
construction and the development of geotechnical theory.

INTRODUCTION

Since more than one decade the designing and constructing techniques of foundation pits
have been greatly improved, especially the design philosophies and ideas. With the rapid
growth ofurban population and the lack ofbuilding land, more and more superhigh buildings
and city track traffic lines are built in some densely populated cities, for example, Shanghai,
Beijing, Hong Kong and Tokyo. And many buildings and track traffic lines must be
constructed in very complicated environments, for instance, some municipal pipes and wires
are situated closely around the construction site. Under these circumstances, the design
philosophies and ideas of foundation pits must be adjusted in order to fit in with the
complicated environments.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Deping Station of Shanghai Track Traffic Line 6 project is located on the west side of
Zhangyang Road. The main supporting structure of Deping station foundation pit is
continuous underground walls. The consolidated depth is 4.0 m. The main project
dimensions are listed in Table I and shown in Figure 1. And the distribution of soil
formations is shown in Figure 2.

Table 1.The main projectdimensions (Dimension unit: m)

The total lengthof Deping station 135

The breadthof normal section 16.2
The breadthof facilitysection 18.4
The breadthof end pit section 19.2
The depth of foundation pit at the end pit section 15
The depth of foundation pit at the normal section 13
The thicknessof continuousundergroundwalls 0.6
The depth of continuousundergroundwalls at the end pit section 27
The depth of continuousundergroundwalls at the normal section 24
The depth of piles into soil layers 20

Oblique
Support

Transverse
Support

ContinuousUnderground Walls
'------
(All Dimensions in mm)

Figure 1. The planar graph for supportof end pit Figure 2. The histogram of soil formation
section distribution

CONSTITUTIVE EQUATION OF SOIL

In this paper, the nonlinear elastic-plastic Drucker-Prager model is adopted to compute stress
field and displacement field, and its yield condition is the extended Von Mises criterion.
The formula of effective stress a, is
I

c, = 3~(Tm +[lsIT [M]{s }/2j2 (1)

in which lim is normal stress or hydrostatic pressure stress, is} is deviator stress. {3 is
material parameter and can be obtained by formula (2). [M] is given by Equation (3).

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 f3 = 2sin¢ (2)
J3(3-sin¢)

1 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0
[M]= (3)
0 0 0 2 0 0
0 0 0 0 2 0
0 0 0 0 0 2

In Formula (2), ¢ is the angle of internal friction.

In the extended Von Mises criterion, the influence of hydrostatic pressure stress is
considered. The yield strength will go up with the increase ofhydrostatic pressure stress. The
Formula of yield strength and the yielding criterion is:

6Ccos¢
(J = --=,.-----'--- (4)
y J3 (3 - sin ¢ )

J-
I

F = 3 fJam +[ { s}T [ M] { s}/ 2 a =0 (5)

Where C is the cohesion intercept and ¢ is the angle of internal friction.

CHOICE OF CONTACT SURFACE ELEMENTS BETWEEN CONTINUOUS

UNDERGROUD WALL AND SOIL MEDIUM

In this paper, Goodman (Goodman RE, Shi G Block, 1985) shell contact element is adopted
to compute the contact surface between continuous underground walls and soil medium. On
the contact surface, the relation between stress and relative displacement is

(6)

where lOn and lOs are the normal and tangential relative displacements, respectively, (J
and T are the normal and shear stresses. kn and k s are the normal and shear stiffuess
coefficients.

SELECTION OF ELEMENT TYPES AND CONSTITUTIVE EQUATIONS FOR

SOIL

In this paper, 8-node three-dimensional solid element and Druck-prager ideal elastic-plastic
model are adopted to study the soil medium. 4-node plate element is employed to simulate
the walls. Bar element is adopted to imitate the internal steel bar supports. The fmite element
mesh is shown in Figures 3-4.

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 Figure 3. The finite element mesh of soil Figure 4. The finite element mesh of walls and bar
medium supports

BASIC SOIL PARAMETERS

The physical parameters of all correlative soil formations are listed in Table 2.
The deformation modulus formula is
Eo = pb(l- Ii) w (7)
s
where Eo is deformation modulus. b is the width of rectangular pressure-bearing plate. Il is
Poisson ratio. p and s are the pressure stress and precipitation value corresponding to the
proportional limit of p (pressure stress)-s(precipitation value) curve. (j) is equal to 0.88 for
rectangular plate or 0.79 for circular plate.

Table 2. The physical parametersof all correlative soil layers

Serial numberof soil layers CDI ® @ (2)1-1 (2)1-2 ®1

Back
Type of soil Silty clay Silty clay Grey clay Grey clay Grey clay
fill
Deformation modulus (kPa) 2920 210 3960 4430 6490
Poisson ratio 0.37 0.33 0.35 0.35 0.36
Cohesion intercept (kPa) 15 11 3 13 32
Angle of internal friction (OJ 15 24 23 21.5 21.5

THE PROCESS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL COMPUTAnON

In the current paper, the computation model is a cuboid of 115m x40mx30m. Based on
previous experience, 25 are taken as the ideal number of iteration times.
The simulation for the process of foundation pit digging and supporting is as follows.
(I) Computing the initial stress field {(J} 0 caused by gravity pressure of soil;
(2) Computing the stress increment {6.a}1 and displacement increment {6.8}1 produced
by first step foundation pit digging. After having finished first step foundation pit digging,
the stress field and displacement field are turned into

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 (8)

(9)

where {8}o take zero;

(3) Testing if the soil medium has turned into yield state;
(4) Repeating (2) and (3) until the foundation pit digging and supporting structure
construction have been finished.
The final stress and displacement fields are

(10)

(11)

SOME OF COMPUTED RESULTS

The final deformation of continuous underground walls is shown in Figure 5. And the surface
settlement around the foundation pit is shown in Figure 6.

n U ·l
,.. -u
rIlI,-.
1oIDt; _.o"u ...

Figure 5. The final deformation of continuous the Figure6. The surfacesettlement around
underground walls (enlarged 50 times) foundation pit

According to the computation result, the maximum settlement arises in two points, namely
(34, 0) and (86, 0), which are symmetric to the longitudinal centre section of the foundation
pit, and the maximum settlement value is 3.48cm.
The final deformation of soil medium in horizontal plane is shown in Figures 7-8.
The sensitivity of wall deformation to the section area of internal steel bar supports is
shown in Figure 9. And the depth-horizontal displacement curves ofthe center vertical line of
the transversal wall corresponding to different thickness are shown in Figure 10.

• 1046·
 J\N ucur_

..... '"I
.._·n
" . .- I
''''
_ ·u '1 tie u
Mle ,1I
" ·I.·M
U ll hl
11. '-'
-~
_ -,"lI'
.... u nn _ ·- u u u
_ · · .I H U.
_ ·1..·•.., . . "
_ ·., u~

'-'~- _ .......
• 11 114'
·. 1 1 .... 41
- .flU"
- . HU I .u.... . _
-.,.,." ....,"
- ."11" · .N ......

Figure 7. The deformation of soil medium medium in Figure 8. The deformation of soil in y-axi s
x-axis direction direction

Displacementtcm) Displacemcnucm)
o I 2 3 4 o I 2 3 4

o - - A=O.02 o - - /=0.6
- - A=O.04 - - /=0.
--'- A=O.06 --.- /= 1.
5 ~A=O.0 8 5 ~/=1.

10 10
E E
:r:
:r:
fr 15
c cfr 15

20 20

25 25

30 30

Figure 9. The sensitivity analysis of wall curves Figure 10. The depth-displacement of the center
deformation to the section area of vertical line of the wall corresponding to different
transversalintemal steel bar supports wall thickness

CONCLUSIONS

Following conclusions could be summarized from the study of current paper.

(1) The horizontal displacement of the continuous underground wall increases with the
increase of the excavation depth, and the location moves down.
(2) During the foundation pit excavation, the soil moves from outsides to foundation pit
bottom and leads to the surface subsidence outside the foundation pit and the swelling of the
foundation pit bottom. Adequate measures should be taken to prevent it.
(3) The section area of internal steel bar supports doesn't influence the horizontal
displacement of continuous underground walls very greatly . In contrast, the influence of
underground wall thickness and soil deformation modulus is much more apparent.
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 (4) The decrease amplitude of maximum horizontal displacement of continuous
underground walls becomes smaller with the increase of wall thickness. According to the
author's research, the influence would be very slight after the thickness exceeds some
specific value. Selecting a appropriate wall thickness is very important.
(5) The traditional FEM method and intelligent technique should be closely integrated for
better solving geotechnical problems . This is also part of the author's further works.

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