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Chapter 5 - Arching in Soil and Braced Cuts

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186 views5 pages

Chapter 5 - Arching in Soil and Braced Cuts

Uploaded by

kuchhal014
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 5

Arching in Soil and Braced Cuts


5.1 Theory of Arching in Soils and its practical Application
The universal process that occurs when the stress is transferred from the yielding part of the soil
to the adjacent rigid mass (zone) of soil is called as arching effect of soil. It can illustrated with
the help buried pipe rather than a rigid pipe.
Arching occurs when there is a difference of the stiffness between the installed structure and the
surrounding soil. If the structure is stiffer than the soil then load arches onto the structure.
Otherwise, if the structure is less stiff than the soil then load arches away from the structure.
For instance, if part of a rigid support of soil mass yields, the adjoining particles move with
respect to the remainder of the soil mass. This movement is resisted by shearing stresses which
reduce the pressure on the yielding portion of the support while increasing the pressure on the
adjacent rigid zones. This phenomenon is called the arching effect.
Illustration
Dry cohesion-less soil with unit weight ‘γ’ is placed on a platform provided with a trap door AB
as shown in figure. The intensity of vertical pressure on the plane A’B’ is uniform and equal to
‘γz’ as shown in figure. However if the trap door is allowed to yield in the downward direction,
the soil within AE and BF tries to follow the trap door, but this is prevented by the shearing
resistance of the soil which gets mobilized along the boundaries AC and BD and keeps the
yielding mass in its original position.
In other words, the pressure which was earlier acting on the trap door AB , is now transferred
from yielding mass onto the sides.
The phenomenon of transferring of this pressure onto the adjoining stationary mass is called
Arching, and the soil is said to be ARCH over AB.
Essential Requirements for Arching
1. There should be an inducement of relative movement within the soil mass.
2. There should be shear strength available for mobilization.
If either of these conditions are not satisfied, Arching can not be develop. Thus, if we have a
culvert slab which is too thick, it will not deflect enough to mobilize the shear strength of
adjoining soil.
Again, In a medium like water, which does not possess shear strength, there can not be arching
effect even if there is sufficient relative movement.
Within the zone of arching the state of stress is dependent on the amount of yield. With the
continuous increase of yield of the support, the influence of arching may gradually be lost.
It can also be noted that arching as a permanent in character as the shearing resistance of the soil
develops. It reduces with time only if the shearing resistance of soil reduces.

C
C E FF D
D
EE

A B

γz

Pressure Diagram

γz

5.2 Bracing for open cuts

For the construction of any substructure below the ground surface, excavation should be made up
to recommended depth. In case of deep vertical cuts (say about 3m) are to be made in soil, there
should be provision of support to protect it from caving or collapsing. Thus, the design of braced
cuts includes the evaluation of the stresses in the member (i.e. bracings) used for supporting the
cut and selection of adequate member section.
Strut

Wale

Sheet pile wall

In case of c-φ soil, the side support may not be needed to keep the cut stable. If there is enough
space, the excavation may be slopped, thereby eliminating the need of support. But, if depth of
vertical cuts exceeds 3m, then temporary support (generally timber planks), called bracing is
essential. For deeper cuts of about 5 to 6m, steel sheet piles may be used for providing support.

Wale, struts, sheet pile etc. are the parts of braced cuts.

5.3 Earth Pressure against bracing in cuts

Peck in 1969 suggested the pressure distribution diagram of braced cuts as shown in figure
below. He explained the pressure as apparent pressure envelopes which represents the fictitious
pressure distribution for obtaining the strut loads in a braced cut.

For the design of braced excavations (i.e. to select sheet pile section, wale section strut section
etc.), an engineer must calculate the lateral earth pressure that the braced cuts will be subjected
to.

Due to very little yielding of wall at the top of the excavation, the pressure will be very close to
at rest at the top. At the bottom of wall with greater yielding, the lateral earth pressure will be
lower than the Rankine’s active earth pressure. So that the earth pressure distribution of braced
cuts varies significantly with that of retaining wall.
0.25H 0.25H

H H 0.5H H
H
0.75H

0.25H

0.65kaγH γH – 4c
0.2γH to 0.4γH
(a) (c)
D (b)
Apparent Earth Pressure Diagrams for cuts (Peck et.all, 1974) (a) for moist
𝛾𝐻 𝛾𝐻
or dense sand (b) for clay when 𝑐
≤ 4 and (c) for clay when 𝑐
> 4

5.4 Strut Loads


Strut

Struts in braced cuts behave like horizontal columns. So, the load carrying capacity depends on
the slenderness ratio and flexural buckling capacity. During construction, it is recommended that
struts should have a minimum vertical spacing of 3m. In clay soils, the depth of the first strut
below the ground surface should be less than the depth of tensile crack.
Procedure to determine the load on strut

 Draw the pressure diagram on braced cut and show the strut levels. Assume that the sheet
pile walls are hinged at the strut levels except for the top and bottom ones.
 Determine the support reaction of the cantilever (for top and bottom struts), and use
simply supported assumption to determine the intermediate struts.
 Sum up the reactions to determine the load in each strut.
 Provide appropriate section for strut using suitable design code.

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