Three-dimensional load bearing behavior of combined steel sheet pile walls

Combined steel sheet pile walls are mainly used for quay wall constructions as a retaining element. Using the current design rules the verification of the steel sheet piles seems to be on the unsafe side for some cases, even though they are proven by practice about decades.The design of combined walls is usually performed two-dimensional considering an arching effect between the king piles (I-shape), due to the complexity. The horizontal earth pressure is assigned to the king piles, considering an arching bow effect and the water pressure is usually assigned to the intermediate piles (Z-shaped). There is only little information on the 3-dimensional load bearing behavior of combined walls.
On the one hand, there are no approaches on how to determine the influence of the horizontal arching effect and how the loads distributes on the steel parts. On the other hand, a vertical arching bow appears due to the depth-dependent increase in earth and water pressure and the inclusion of both, vertical and horizontal arch is not taken into account. Thus, the aim is to research the load distribution and three-dimensional load bearing behavior of combined walls, which are loaded with earth and water pressure and considering the results in design rules and guidelines. With the inclusion of the real bearing behavior and the anchoring the verification might be optimized and lead to a more economical design. Improved design guidelines would lead to more competitive advantages for KMU, which provide steel solutions in quay wall constructions.

Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Konstruktion und Entwurf
Pfaffenwaldring 7, 70569 Stuttgart
Tel.: 0711 / 685-66245

Univ. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrike Kuhlmann
Technische Universität Hamburg, Institut für Geotechnik und Baubetrieb
Harburger Schloßstraße 20, 21079 Hamburg
Tel.: 040 / 42878-3762
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Grabe

FOSTA e.V. / AIF

2021