Parametric and Comparative Study of a Flexible Retaining Wall

Abstract

IntroductionThe design of retaining walls in day-to-day practice is currently based on different calculation methods. If classical methods considering specific modes of failure, the elastic line and the equivalent beam are still employed for certain types of walls, it is mainly the subgrade reaction and the numerical methods which are most frequently adopted. The subgrade reaction method or spring method is rather well mastered and uncertainties mainly rely in the choice of the coefficient of subgrade reaction [1], [2]. The numerical methods have the advantage of taking into account more accurately the soil behavior, the soil-wall interface and also the ability to consider multiple hydraulic conditions and various options for modeling support conditions. However, the results obtained by these methods still require to be validated by engineer judgment or others experimental results (physical model in centrifuge for example) or measured in-situ. The main objectives of this study were to define the influence factors of the commonly used design methods and the resulting uncertainties encountered by the practitioners. This paper focuses on numerical modeling and analysis the behavior of a free standing diaphragm wall, made of reinforced concrete, embedded in sand, by the subgrade reaction method using the K-Rea software and by the numerical method based on finite elements with Plaxis 2D-v8.5 software. For both methods, different simulations have been performed with non-loaded supported soil. For the first method, we are interested in analyzing the influence of the main factors affecting soil movement and instability of the retaining wall. These factors mainly concern the wall rigidity, the construction sequence and mechanical parameters of the soil. One key step of this method is the difficulty in evaluating the coefficient of subgrade reaction Kh on a rational basis. Concerning the finite element method, the soil is homogeneous and dry; its behavior is described by linear elastic perfectly plastic model Mohr-Coulomb (MC) and nonlinear hardening soil model (HSM). The diaphragm wall is modeled by "beam" elements. The simulations were performed with different mesh sizes and reduction factors of the soil-wall interface. For both methods, the analyses are focuses on wall deformation,

Development of a Reinforced Concrete Sheet Pile Wall Element

“…4). After the geotechnical finite element analysis, the effects and displacements acting on the structure were transformed to the structural model, which was created using Axis VM finite element software, which is a widespread (especially in Hungary) special finite element software for structural engineers [9]. After a few rounds of iteration, which approximately means a few hundred hours of modelling a configuration, which can be said to be optimum was reached.…”

Robust Analysis and Design of Bored Pile Considering Uncertain Parameters

“…Past research works have also been conducted to incorporate the uncertainty of soil properties in the retaining wall design. Chogueur et al [27] presents various simulations with the structure installed into the supported ground without surcharge. They concluded that the use of computational methods minimizes uncertainties arising from limited number of soil properties.…”

Determination of Passive Failure Surface Geometry for Cohesionless Backfills

“…Several studies in literature investigated the evolution of lateral pressures and the formation of shear bands in retained backfills. Some of these used experiments [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] whereas the others preferred numerical methods [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”