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Seepage and pore pressures around contiguous pile retaining walls

Seepage and pore pressures around contiguous pile retaining walls
Seepage and pore pressures around contiguous pile retaining walls
Diaphragm and bored pile retaining walls are often used for the construction of basements, metro station boxes and cut-and-cover tunnels in urban areas. While diaphragm and secant pile walls are generally intended (and assumed in analysis) to be effectively impermeable, contiguous piles may allow through-the-wall seepage even when preventative measures have been undertaken. Provided the flowrates can be tolerated or dealt with, through-the-wall seepage should result in a reduction in pore water pressures behind the retaining wall compared with an impermeable construction, giving the potential for reductions in the depth of embedment and wall thickness, hence cost. However, this potential is rarely realised owing to the difficulty in quantifying with sufficient confidence the hydraulic regime associated with a leaky retaining wall. This paper reports the results of laboratory investigations and numerical analyses carried out to assess the effect of the inter-pile gaps on the pore pressure distribution around a contiguous pile retaining wall. The results show that the pore pressures behind the piles reduce significantly as the pile spacing is increased. Long-term field monitoring confirms that the pore water pressures are much lower than would be expected for an impermeable retaining wall in similar soil. The applicability of a simple expression linking the pile diameter, pile spacing and the effective permeability of an equivalent uniform wall is demonstrated.
pore pressures, retaining walls, seepage
0016-8505
523-532
Richards, D.J.
a58ea81e-443d-4dab-8d97-55d76a43d57e
Wiggan, C.A.
e05ddd20-8812-4c00-ace5-353daea0cde3
Powrie, W.
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
Richards, D.J.
a58ea81e-443d-4dab-8d97-55d76a43d57e
Wiggan, C.A.
e05ddd20-8812-4c00-ace5-353daea0cde3
Powrie, W.
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c

Richards, D.J., Wiggan, C.A. and Powrie, W. (2016) Seepage and pore pressures around contiguous pile retaining walls. Géotechnique, 66 (7), 523-532. (doi:10.1680/jgeot.14.P.121).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Diaphragm and bored pile retaining walls are often used for the construction of basements, metro station boxes and cut-and-cover tunnels in urban areas. While diaphragm and secant pile walls are generally intended (and assumed in analysis) to be effectively impermeable, contiguous piles may allow through-the-wall seepage even when preventative measures have been undertaken. Provided the flowrates can be tolerated or dealt with, through-the-wall seepage should result in a reduction in pore water pressures behind the retaining wall compared with an impermeable construction, giving the potential for reductions in the depth of embedment and wall thickness, hence cost. However, this potential is rarely realised owing to the difficulty in quantifying with sufficient confidence the hydraulic regime associated with a leaky retaining wall. This paper reports the results of laboratory investigations and numerical analyses carried out to assess the effect of the inter-pile gaps on the pore pressure distribution around a contiguous pile retaining wall. The results show that the pore pressures behind the piles reduce significantly as the pile spacing is increased. Long-term field monitoring confirms that the pore water pressures are much lower than would be expected for an impermeable retaining wall in similar soil. The applicability of a simple expression linking the pile diameter, pile spacing and the effective permeability of an equivalent uniform wall is demonstrated.

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__soton.ac.uk_ude_personalfiles_users_ss1q07_mydesktop_14-P-121-R4 Richards Wiggan Powrie Main Text.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 6 November 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 16 March 2016
Published date: 3 June 2016
Keywords: pore pressures, retaining walls, seepage
Organisations: Infrastructure Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 392655
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/392655
ISSN: 0016-8505
PURE UUID: f50cce61-20fc-43f1-87e8-74d1205f95f3
ORCID for W. Powrie: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2271-0826

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Apr 2016 09:04
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: D.J. Richards
Author: C.A. Wiggan
Author: W. Powrie ORCID iD

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