Reliability of quay walls using finite element analysiscalibration of partial safety factors in quay wall design by probabilistic plaxis calculations

During the last two years, CUR committee 183 has worked on the upgrade of the Dutch Quay Walls handbook (CUR 211), which is to be published in 2013. Two of the main elements that are considered in this new edition are the addition of Finite Element analysis (FEM) as a method for design, comparable to the description in the Handbook Sheet-Pile Structures (CUR 166), and the calibration of partial safety factors design with FEM.With respect to the actuality of this update it must be remembered that with the new 2nd Maasvlakte and other changes in the Rotterdam harbour area, several quay walls are under construction. The research is done for two different types of quay wall, modelled in Plaxis. To begin with, an anchored sheet-pile with two different sheet-pile lengths (21m and 23m) was analysed.For the anchored sheet-pile the target reliability is well approached for the mechanisms wall failure in bending and anchor failure in tension, when designing according to the FEM design prescriptions of CUR 166. The obtained reliability index for soil mechanical failure is too low, but this is mainly due to the used calculation method