Effect of diaphragm wall construction on adjacent deep foundation

The need of using the underground space was limited in the human history, but in the last century and due to the increase of world population, the use of the underground space has become essential. Underground metro stations, deep garages, tunnels and basements, etc... are examples of using the underground space inside the cities. The use of underground space is conducted through deep excavation or tunneling. Several techniques are used to conduct the deep excavation and one of the most popular and well known techniques used for deep excavation is the diaphragm walling technique which is widely used specially inside the cities to safe space because it requires a very small space to conduct a deep reinforced concreted wall under the ground. However, the construction of such walls causes deformation of the surrounding ground and it could also affect the nearby existing structures. In some recorded cases the slurry trench failed and causes a great deformation which effect the nearby structures. However, Minor damages and cracks were observed in buildings near stable slurry trenches, because the soil deformation was high. The existing structures inside the cities have been constructed on shallow or deep foundations and this research was oriented to study the effect of diaphragm wall installation on the existing adjacent piled foundation. Very limited studies were made to investigate such an effect. At Cambridge university centrifuge model tests were conducted to investigate the effect of slurry reduction on single piles. Field observation was conducted in several projects and showed the settlement and deformation of buildings located on deep foundation during the diaphragm wall trenching. Numerical analysis was conducted using FLAC 3D to simulate the laboratory and the available field works. FLAC 3D is a commercial software and it depend in its analysis on finite difference method. The purpose of the simulation was to verify the used numerical analysis method. The results from the numerical analysis were in a good agreement with the available field data results, and they were also in good agreement with the laboratory test results regarding soil settlement but it was not in such good agreement when they were compared regarding the pile. Generally, from the verification the numerical analysis method is considered to be reliable. A parametric study was performed using the verified numerical analysis method. The flexible nature of the numerical analysis allows to simulate different cases and to study a variety of parameters. The output of the parametric study was the pile deflection, the bending moment and the shaft friction. The study was divided into three main parts while each part contains several parameter combinations. The first part studied the effect of the single and double panel(s) on the single pile group that has different piles numbers and formations. The second and third parts studied the effect of multiple panels on connected pile groups and piled raft foundation, respectively. Generally, the studied parameters can be divided into three main groups. The first is related to the trench which includes the panel dimension, the number of panels and the slurry level inside the panel. The effect of slurry pressure reduction at some levels inside the trench was also studied. The second group concerned the soil type and ground water level. The third group is related to the deep foundation which includes pile characteristics, location, and formation within the group. The results from the parametric study showed that the pile behavior was greatly affected by panel length, groundwater level, slurry level inside the trench and steadiness of the slurry pressure. The piles were also affected by the different stages of construction related to the pile location from the constructed panel. The piles within the group act together so they behave different from each other according to their position. The effect of the pile on the trench stability is presented through a simple analytical approach which is based on the wedge analysis. The analytical approach provided equations that calculate the factor of safety in two and three dimensions. The pile location was governing the equation that calculate the factor of safety because the pile could be fully inside the failure wedge or intersect with the failure surface. A comparative study was conducted to find out the effect of the different pile location and other parameters on the safety factor. Generally, this comparative study showed that the pile located within the failure wedge reduces the factor of safety, while the pile that intersects the failure surface could increase it. The pile row near a trench that contains piles inside the failure wedge and others intersects the failure surface act together to balance the failure wedge. The factor of safety results of some cases from the analytical approach were also compared with those calculated from the numerical analysis. In general, the factor of safety from the numerical analysis was higher than that calculated from the proposed analytical approach. This research helped to understand the trenching effect on the ground surface and on the nearby piled foundations. It provided charts that could help to predict the soil deformation and earth pressure coefficient which could be used in the design. It showed through the parametric study the precautions that should be taken into consideration during trenching process near piled foundation. This research provided a design method for the slurry trench panel near piled foundation