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Sheet Pile Wall Design

Sheet Pile Wall Design

Sheet Pile Wall Design

(OP)
Good Day!
I'm in charge of designing a small section of steel sheet piling in sandy soils.  To date, I've been able to complete the hand calculations based on foundation text by DAS.  Very nice proceedures that my reviewers can follow.

The problem comes in with the dredge line.  It slopes away at 2 horiz to 1 vert from the sheeting.  I will also need to calculate deflection at the top of the sheeting.  Anyone have any good books to recommend?  I'm not as worried about this one problem as I am the education in what is out there.

I've looked at some documents such as the Army Corps of Engineers design manuals, but not much luck.  Bowels suggests a finite element based proceedure, but I sure would like hand calculations if possible.

Is this normal that structural engineers design sheeting?  Seems like a geotechnical problem to me, but that's not what my company has ever done.

Any comments would be great!
Merry Christmas!

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

(OP)
Oh, I should also mention Cantilevered sheeting is my main focus right now.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

If you consider the sheet pile to be a beam of unit width, you can use the Moment-Area method and compute the deflection at any point. I've done it... It's a lot of work, but kind of a fun exercise. Your boss may not like it, though.

The net pressure diagram is your loading diagram and, as you know from Das, these diagrams are all sorts of trangles and trapazoids, so you've got to take it slow.

You can also locate a copy of the free software ProSheet that Arcelor (Luxembourg steel conglomerate) offers. It computes deflections quite satisfactorily.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

Also, you should post you question in only one forum.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

Someday, I hope to sit down and write the FE solution for this problem in Mathcad so folks can follow the whole thing.  Unfortunately, I don't fully understand the soil modulas necessary to formulate the FE solution.

In the past I used an Excel spreadsheet and some trial and error to come up with the solution following a method in Bowles.  The problem is your sloping soil is a little tricky.

You need to solve the problem and then verify you can obtain the passive soil pressures at each depth, which you can't at the top of the sloping soil.  At this point, I assume the wall actually extends further into the soil (e.g. I artificially increase the height) and then I try again.  At some point, you will convince yourself that the soil is able to provide the predicted resistence and you have a solution.

The other advice, using moment-area in lieu of FE, is what I would also do.  FE will probably give you a better deflection, but requires a lot of work the first time.  Once again, a moment-area method using Excel to do the crunching is probably the best without FE.  I also agree your boss won't like it.  As a matter of fact, not only did my boss not like it when I did something like that, he didn't like it when I did it on my own time cause someone still had to check it.  That is one reason I don't work for that boss anymore.  Good Luck.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

United States Steel used to publish a very useful Steel Sheet Piling Design Manual.  Searching through their web site, I couldn't find it, but you might be better at searching than I am.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

The US Steel Sheet Pile Design Manual is now the Pile Buck Sheet Pile Design manual.  Search for Pile Buck.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

(OP)
Thanks for the tip. I did find it at:

http://www.slideruleera.net/Steel-Piling.html

Some good information on this website!


RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

Pile Buck is revising the manual.  Check the Pile Buck web site.

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

" As a matter of fact, not only did my boss not like it when I did something like that, he didn't like it when I did it on my own time cause someone still had to check it.  That is one reason I don't work for that boss anymore. "

Do you work for the same boss I do?

RE: Sheet Pile Wall Design

ahunt, you've noticed that SlideRuleEra has quite a resource site.  We're lucky to have that person be a member of this forum and share knowledge with us.

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