Soil arching effect of Lattice-Shaped Diaphragm Wall as bridge foundation

Abstract

As a new type of bridge foundation, Lattice-Shaped Diaphragm Wall (hereinafter for LSDW) is highly concerned in relevant construction area but its research is far from achievement. Based on PFC^2D, the soil arching effect of LSDWs is studied thoroughly in this paper and the special attention is given to its influencing factors. It turns out to be that a differential wall-soil settlement can be found at the lower location of soil core of an LSDW which is one of the trigger factors of soil arching; meanwhile, the differential settlement degree can reflect the exertion degree of soil arching; the shape of soil arching is basically a hemisphere which can be explained by the theory proposed by Hewlett and Randolph; normally, the chamber number is a negative factor for the development of soil arching; the soil arching effect is significantly influenced by the distance of two adjacent wall elements and the foundation depth, and a relatively large or small value of these factors is disadvantageous to the exertion of soil arching; in addition, the soil arching effect increase with the growth of stiffness and friction coefficient of particles and the friction coefficient of particles has insignificant influence on the development of soil arching effect compared with particle stiffness.

Keywords

LSDW / soil arching / PFC^2D / shape of soil arching / influencing factors

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by China Schoiarship Council, the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41172260, 41372292, 51108393), and the Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education in China (No. IRT13092), as well as the Doctoral Fund of Southwest University of Science and Technology (15zx7152).

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