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Numerical Analysis and Field Monitoring on Deformation of the

Semi-top-down Excavation in Shanghai

Zhong-hui Huang 1, Xiang-shan Zhao 2, Jin-jian Chen 3, and Jian-hua Wang 4

1
Ph.D. student, Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Shanghai, China. E-mail: zhonghui_huang@live.cn
2
Graduate student, Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University. Shanghai, China. E-mail: dacymeng@126.com
3
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University. Shanghai, China. E-mail: chenjj29@sjtu.edu.cn.
4
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Shanghai, China. E-mail: wjh417@sjtu.edu.cn

ABSTRACT: A semi-top-down excavation method is proposed for construction

of an underground metro station in Shanghai, which is close to an elevated metro
station and several high-rise buildings with shallow foundations. The
semi-top-down method combined the construction sequence of temporary strut
and middle floor slab of the substructure during excavation, which united
advantages of the top-down method and the bottom-up method. The efficiency of
the new method to reduce the environment deformation is analyzed based on the
numerical analysis and field measurements. Both the settlement of buildings and
the lateral displacement of retaining structure were obtained numerically and
compared with those of the traditional excavation method. Predicted results shows
that the increase of building settlements trend to be mild after the middle slab is
constructed, which means that the semi-top-down method has a good effect on
controlling the surrounding deformation. The monitoring results show that the
proposed series of techniques is effective and the displacements of the adjacent
structures are similar to that predicted by numerical method. The settlement
observation of the high-rise building and elevated metro station show that both the
settlements and the differential settlement are within control. Therefore, the new
method can ensure the efficiency of deep excavation and reduce the environment
deformation.

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INTRODUCTION

With rapid development of underground space, deep excavations in urban areas

are becoming much larger in dimensions and it is increasingly important to
consider the environmental impact during the construction process. Deep
excavation causes significant change in stresses and leads to deformation of the
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surrounding ground (Long 2001). When the excavation is close to existing

buildings or underground facilities, it is extremely important that a proper
construction method is selected so that the service condition of adjacent buildings
and facilities is not adversely affected. Many studies have been carried out to
reduce the excavations induced adverse impact on surrounding environment by
improving the construction technique, i.e. soil enforcement, top-down
construction method, etc. The result shows that top-down construction method has
many advantages on deformation control (Paek and Ockz 1996; Ou 1998; Wang
2010) and soil improvement could effectively reduce the deformation of retaining
structure (Ou 2008).
Although the top-down construction method can efficiently reduce the adverse
impact on surrounding environment, the bottom-up construction method is widely
used in metro station construction because of its high construction efficiency.
However, when the excavations are in soft subsoil or surrounding buildings need
to be strict protected, the bottom-up construction method is no longer an
appropriate choice. Semi-top-down construction method, taking both advantage of
top-down and bottom-up construction method, is one of the recently developed
methods to efficiently control the surrounding structure deformation with highly
construction efficiency. In this method, part of the underground structure, e.g.
middle slab, is constructed from top to bottom during excavation, and also work
as the supporting structure for the deep excavation. Therefore, the construction
time can be reduced by saving the time required for installation and removal of
temporary structures. In this paper, excavation of Yishan Road Metro Station
constructed by the semi-top-down method is numerically studied and analyzed
with the field data.

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

Yishan Road Station of Metro Line 4 in Shanghai is an underground metro

station and joints to the elevated station of Line 3, showed in Fig. 1. The length of
Line 4 station is 617.79 m and its width is 9.9-33 m. The station has two
underground levels and the excavation depth is 15.0-18.73 m from the ground
surface.
The subsoil in the construction site is mainly soft soils comprising Quaternary
alluvial and marine deposits. In general, the soil layer surrounding the
underground metro station and near the excavation surface is very soft silty clay.

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The ground water level is about 0.5 m below the ground surface. The engineering
properties of the soil layers in-site are given in Table 1.
Fig. 1 shows the site layout. There are many buildings close to the location of
new station which must be protected rigorously, including ten high-rise buildings
with strip foundation and four buildings with box foundation. The shortest
distance between the diagram wall and the exiting foundation is just 4.5 m.
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Moreover, the existing elevated station of Line 3 stands on the west of the new
underground station and the shortest distance between two stations is only 2.7 m.
Large deformation of underground structure or soil would be seriously harmful to
Line 3 and buildings nearby. Therefore, it is very important to control the
movement of station and existing structure within the allowable limit.
According to the site investigation report, the excavation is underlain by thick,
relatively soft, quaternary alluvial and marine deposits as shown in Table 1.

FIG. 1. Relationship between the station and existing buildings.

Table 1. Engineering properties of the soil layers

Soil layer H W γ c Φ
No. e λ κ M
name (m) (m) kN/m3 kPa (°)
1 Filled soil 5.7 - 18 1 - - 0.083 0.005 0.86
2 Silty clay 2.3 35.5 18.2 1.13 21 19.5 0.11 0.006 0.6
3 Very soft clay 4.5 42 17.5 1.37 11 22 0.126 0.006 0.55
4 Clay 11.5 51.5 16.7 0.98 14 12 0.137 0.008 0.66
5-1 Hard clay 12 37.4 17.8 0.68 16 16.5 0.115 0.007 0.45
5-2 Sandy clay 14 34 17.9 0.84 16 22.5 0.1 0.004 0.52
5-3 Fine sand >10 31.1 18.3 0.76 13 25.5 0.081 0.004 0.5

Note: H=thickness, W=water content, =unit weight, e=void ratio, c=cohesion,

Φ=angle of internal friction, λ=slope of rebounb curve line of e-lnp, κ=slope of
normal consolidation line of e-lnp, M=slope of critical state line of p-q plane.

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CONSTRUCTION METHOD OF THE DEEP EXCAVATION

The deflection of the retaining structure and movements of adjacent

environment caused by the deep excavation would break the original balanced
force system, make buildings deform, and even destroy the buildings. Civilian
residential and the Station Yishan Road of Line 3 are both very close to the
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foundation pit, so the construction focused on how to reduce the deformation of

existing underground structure in order to protect the nearby high-rise buildings
and the exiting station of Line 3.
Fig. 2 presents the retaining structures of the excavation in cross sections. The
traditional construction method is bottom-up method with four braces to support
the diaphragm walls, every brace is constructed once the pit is excavated to the
depth of the brace. After the whole excavation and construction of the pit,
temporary brace will be removed and floors will be constructed. One or two rows
of piles are placed between the diaphragm walls and buildings to reduce the stress
superposition in soil, and decrease the settlement of ground and lateral
displacement of walls to protect the surrounding buildings.

a. Bottom-up method b. Semi-top-down method

Fig. 2. Construction profiles of the construction method

Considering the strict requirements of environment protection, the

semi-top-down method is proposed as showed in Table 2, which means the middle
floor is constructed once the pit is excavated to -10.29 m. For the semi-top-down
construction method, the conventional supporting structures (i.e. steel struts) are
replaced by the slabs of underground structure to control the diaphragm wall
deflections. So the bottom slab of the underpass works as the conventional top

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slab of deep excavation in this project, and the middle slab is also used as the
supporting structure during the semi-top-down construction.
Table 3 shows the contrast between the two methods. Compared with the
bottom-up method, the speed of excavation below the middle floor slab is
relatively slower, which could be overcome by some construction measures, while
the deformation of the surrounding environment is controlled within a small value.
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Because of the effect of the middle floor slab, a large amount of foundation
enhancement is decreased significantly. Considering all factors, the
semi-top-down method would gain higher economic benefits.

Table 2. Construction Sequences of semi-top-down method

Stage Construction Sequences of semi-top-down method
1 Construct diaphragm walls, column piles and the first concrete strut
2 Excavate to -4.14m, then construct 1st steel strut
3 Excavate to -6.9m, then construct 2nd steel strut
Excavate to -10.29m, then construct the middle floor slab
4
(different from bottom-up method)
5 Excavate to -15.0m, then construct the 3rd steel strut
6 Excavate to -18.6m, then construct 4th steel strut and bottom floor slab

Table 3.The contrast between the two construction methods.

Displacement Overall
Method Construction Time Cost
Result evaluation
The amount of ground
improvement is more,
Bottom The ground The retaining wall
so the construction
-up improvement deforms Not good
period lasts long, but
method costs much commonly
the excavation spends
less time.
The cost of
The amount of ground The deformation
Semi-top foundation
improvement is less, of the wall below
-down improvement Better
and the construction -10m depth is
method is decreased
period is shorter. controlled
significantly

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS ON THE DEFORMATION

According to the construction plan, the modeling of excavation sequences of

semi-top-down method and bottom-top method are divided into 6 stages
respectively, as shown in Table 4. Two 2D finite-element models are established
using the general-purpose nonlinear finite-element analysis program suite
ABAQUS. The 2D solid elements were used for soils, columns and girders. The

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entire 2D models consist of 16,531 elements and 16,926 nodes. To reduce the
computation load, all the elements are linear-order elements. The two side
boundary surfaces are fixed along the direction perpendicular to each surface. The
bottom boundary is constrained along all x and y directions. The diaphragm walls,
the steel columns, the RC piles of the foundation, and the floor slab is modeled as
isotropic linear-elastic materials. The Young’s modulus and the Poisson’s ratio of
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the concrete are taken as 30 GPa and 0.2, respectively, while those of the steel are
taken as 211 GPa and 0.3, respectively. The Cam-clay model is adopted to
simulate the nonlinear behavior of soils. The parameters of soils are obtained
empirically from the soil investigation report. The node-to-surface contact model
in ABAQUS is applied to model the soil-wall interface so that the slippage and
separation could be considered if there is enough relative displacement.

Table 4. FEM modeling steps for different methods

Method Stage Construction Sequences of two methods
Initial condition, construct diaphragm wall and column
0
piles.
1 Excavate to -4.14m
Bottom-top
2 Construct 1st steel strut, excavate to -6.9m
method
3 Construct 2nd steel strut, excavate to -10.29m
4 Construct 3rd and the 4th steel struts, excavate to -18.6m
5 Construct the bottom slab.
0-3 Similar to Bottom-top method
Semi-top
Construct middle slab and 3rd steel strut, excavate to
-down 4
-18.6m
method
5 Construct bottom slab and 4th steel strut.

Fig. 3 shows the lateral displacement of diaphragm walls of bottom-up and

semi-top-down method. The result indicates that after the fourth step of
excavation, the lateral displacement of the left diaphragm wall under bottom-up
method is 27.2 mm, and the right one is 25.97 mm, which is obvious larger than
semi-top-down method which is only 20.8 mm and 18.91 mm. It means that the
semi-top-down method has a good effect on controlling the influence on
diaphragm walls caused by excavation.
Fig. 4 compares the ground settlement of the bottom-up method and the
semi-top-down method. The results indicate that the maximum settlements of the
bottom-up method and the semi-top-down method are 13.0 mm and 9.0 mm
respectively, which means the semi-top-down method has a good effect on
controlling the surrounding movements caused by the excavation.

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0 0

bottom-up semi-top-down
7 7

14 14

Depth( m)
Depth( m)
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21 21
1 1
2 2
28 28 3
3
4 4
35 35
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25
Lateral displacement of the wall( mm) Lateral displacement of the wall( mm)

0 0
1 1
5 2 5 2
3 3
4 4
10 10
Depth( m)

Depth( m)

15 15

20 20

25 25
bottom-up
semi-top-down
30 30
-35 -28 -21 -14 -7 0 7 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5
Lateral displacement of the wall( mm) Lateral displacement of the wall( mm)

Fig. 3. Displacement of diaphragm walls

0
settlement of the ground( mm)

-3

-6

-9
bottom-up method
-12 semi-top-down method

-15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
distance from the wall ( m)

Fig. 4. Settlement of the ground behind the wall

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MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS

During the excavation and construction, the deformation of diaphragm walls

and existing underground structures was monitored to ensure the safety of both
the excavation and the operating railways.
Fig. 5 shows the monitored settlement of Building A during construction. The
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nearest Point F184 is 0.4 m far from the enclosure wall, and Point F185 is 3.4m
far from the enclosure wall. Figure 4 indicates that after the construction of the
middle floor slab, the subsidence of all monitoring points trend to be mild. It
means that if the distance between the building and diaphragm walls does not
reach 1.0m, the deterrent effect from the middle floor slab is obvious.
Point F184: The maximum settlement of sidewall of is 9.76 mm, the settlement
difference is 7.09mm, and the ratio of differential is 0.25‰. Point F185: The
maximum settlement of sidewall of is 6.18mm, the settlements’ difference is 1.84
mm, and the differential settlement ratio is 0.07‰. The diagonal settlement
differences of Building A are 5.42 mm and 3.46 mm. Although the semi-top-down
method has some impact, it’s not enough to influence residents’ daily life. The
monitor result shows that the increase of building settlements trends to be mild
after the middle slab is constructed, which indicates that semi-top-down method
could reduce the deformation of surrounding buildings.
Fig. 6 shows the relationship between the deformation of diaphragm walls and
the settlement of building A. After the construction, the horizontal displacement of
the diaphragm walls near the building is 45.4 mm, and of the other side is 32.0
mm. The excavation depth of the foundation pit is about 16 m, and the wall’s
horizontal displacement is about 0.2-0.3% of the depth, it is reasonable for the
general rules of deep foundation pits’ deformation.
0
F184
F189
-4 F190
F185
Settlement(mm)

F186
-8 F187
constructing
F188
middle floor
slab
after
-12 construction constructing the
before the below middle bottom floor slab
construction of floor slab
middle floor slab
-16
11/1 11/16 12/1 12/16 12/31 1/15 1/30 2/14
Time(day)

Fig. 5. Settlement variation of Building A

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Fig. 6. Displacement of diaphragm wall and adjacent building

Table 5 shows the contrast between the FEM and the measured data of wall and
soil. It shows that measured data are all larger than FEM data, but both sets of
data show the same regularity: δhml > δhmr, Hhml < Hhmr, and the difference of δvm
of FEM and measured data is less than 10%, the prediction is consistent well with
the measured data.

Table 5. Contrast between FEM and measured data

Item FEM Measured
Maximum lateral displacement of left wall(δhml/mm) 20.80 45.40
Depth of the maximum lateral displacement, left wall
14.95 18.00
(Hhml/m)
Maximum lateral displacement of right wall(δhmr/mm) 18.91 32.20
Depth of the maximum lateral displacement, right wall
15.60 21.00
(Hhmr/m)
Settlement(δvm/mm) 9.00 9.76

CONCLUSIONS

Since Station Yishan Road is close to some high-rise buildings and the exiting
station of Line 3, so that the bottom-up method might be harmful to the
surrounding environment, the paper suggests using the semi-top-down method
and does numerical analysis with ABAQUS. The result shows displacements of
the semi-top-down method are less than those of bottom-up method, which means

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the semi-top-down method has the higher security. The monitored data indicates
that the proposed series of techniques is effective and the displacements of the
adjacent structures are similar to that predicted by numerical method. The
settlement observation of the high-rise building and the elevated metro station
shows that both the settlements and the differential settlement are within control.
Therefore, the new method can ensure the efficiency of deep excavation and
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reduce the environment deformation, and the monitored data in the trend is
consistent well with FEM data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research is supported by the Science and Technology Commission of

Shanghai Municipality (No. 11231201600), National Natural Science Foundation
of China (No. 41330633).

REFERENCES

Long, M. (2001). “Database for retaining wall and ground movements due to deep
excavations.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., ASCE, 127 (3): 203-224.
Ou, C.Y, Teng, F.C, Wang, I.W. (2008). Analysis and design of partial ground
improvement in deep excavations. Computer and Geotechnics, 35 (4):
576-584.
Ou, C.Y., Liao, J.T., and Lin, H.D. (1998). “Performance of diaphragm wall
constructed using top-down method.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., ASCE,
124(9): 798-808.
Paek, J.H., and Ockz, J.H. (1996). “Innovative building construction technique:
modified up/down method.” J. Constr. Engrg. And Mgmt., ASCE, 122(2):
141-146.
Wang, J.H., Xu, Z.H., and Wang, W.D. (2010). “Wall and ground movements due
to deep excavations in Shanghai soft soils.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng.,
ASCE, 136(7): 985–994.

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