Soil Arching–Induced Lateral Earth Pressure Redistribution on the Retaining Wall in a Multistrutted Excavation in Soft Soil
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 149, Issue 10
Abstract
Soil arching that is generated and develops within the ground behind the retaining wall in a multistrutted excavation is a soil stress transfer process related to the relative movement between the well-retained soil mass and the inward-moved soil mass. The lateral earth pressure behind the wall is redistributed induced by this soil arching, which has not been deeply investigated. In this paper, the wall deflection, lateral soil movement, ground surface settlement, strut forces, total lateral earth pressure, and the water level outside the excavation were monitored in a multistrutted excavation in soft soil. The measured results indicated that the lateral earth pressure redistribution was associated with the arching effect. A lateral earth pressure model considering the soil arching effect is proposed, and was verified using measurements obtained from this study and the literature. It was found that the coefficients of the proposed model are linearly related to the ratio of the soil volume loss to the gain (RLG), which can be used to characterize the soil arching process development. This study improves the understanding of the lateral earth pressure redistribution induced by soil arching, and the proposed model can be used to calculate more-realistic lateral earth pressure.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52208337), the foundations of the Center for Balance Architecture, Zhejiang University, and the Key Laboratory of Soft Soils and Geoenvironmental Engineering (Zhejiang University), Ministry of Education, China (Grant No. 2021P02).
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 149 • Issue 10 • October 2023
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 12, 2022
Accepted: May 19, 2023
Published online: Jul 17, 2023
Published in print: Oct 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Dec 17, 2023
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