68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

RANDOM FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF SUPPORTED EXCAVATIONS CONSIDERING SPATIAL VARIABILITY

Session: Uncertainty, Reliability, and Risk / Incertitude, fiabilité, et risque

Jerry Luo, University of Akron (United States)
Sedat Sert, Sakarya University (Turkey)
Wenping Gong, Clemson University (United States)
C. Hsein Juang, Clemson University (United States)

This paper presents a study of the effect of spatial variability on the estimated lateral wall deflection and bending moment of a cantilever retaining wall that supports excavations in sands. A commercially available finite element program, PLAXIS, is adopted to predict the excavation-induced maximum lateral wall deflection and maximum bending moment. The spatial variability of the internal friction angle is modeled using random field theory. A series of systematical numerical simulations are performed based on the Monte Carlo simulation to investigate various levels of spatial effect. This study reveals that the spatial variability has considerable influence on the estimated maximum lateral deflection and maximum bending moment. The negligence of spatial variability of soil parameters will lead to an underestimation of the variation in the excavation-induced maximum wall deflection and maximum bending moment. The probability of failure for the serviceability limit state can be either overestimated or underestimated depending on the limiting lateral wall deflection. This study points to the importance of random field modeling in coping with the problem of excavations supported by cantilever retaining walls.