Sheet Pile Walls - Advantages & Disadvantages
Sheet pile walls are constructed by driving prefabricated sections into the ground. Soil conditions may allow for the sections to be vibrated into ground instead of it being hammer driven. The full sheet pile wall is formed by connecting the joints of adjacent sheet pile sections in sequential installation. Sheet pile walls provide structural resistance by utilizing the full section. Steel sheet piles are most commonly used in deep excavations, although reinforced concrete sheet piles have also being used successfully.
Fig. Typical Sheet Pile Section
Sheet Piles - Advantages and Disadvantages
Steel sheet piling is the most common because of several advantages over other materials:
1. Provides high resistance to driving stresses. 2. Light weight 3. Can be reused on several projects. 4. Long service life above or below water with modest protection. 5. Easy to adapt the pile length by either welding or bolting 6. Joints are less apt to deform during driving.
Sheet pile walls are constructed by: 1. Laying out a sequence of sheet pile sections, and ensuring that sheet piles will interlock. 2. Driving (or vibrating) the individual sheet piles to the desired depth. 3. Driving the second sheet pile with the interlocks between the first sheet pile and second "locked" 4. Repeating steps 2 & 3 until the wall perimeter is completed 5. Use connector elements when more complex shapes are used.
Sheet pile wall disadvantages are: 1. Sections can rarely be used as part of the permanent structure. 2. Installation of sheet piles is difficult in soils with boulders or cobbles. In such cases, the desired wall depths may not be reached. 3. Excavation shapes are dictated by the sheet pile section and interlocking elements. 4. Sheet pile driving may cause neighborhood disturbance 5. Settlements in adjacent properties may take place due to installation vibrations
Image Above: Sheet pile cofferdams for $.3.9 Billion Tapan Zee Bridge in New York, designed by Siefert Associates with DeepEX software program by Deep Excavation
DeepEX can Design and Optimize Sheet Pile Walls in Minutes! Review Software Capabilities
Types of Sheet Pile Walls Review the Full Article
Sheet pile wall design with DeepEX - Deep Excavation software!
DeepEX our leading software program for deep excavations is ideal for designing sheet pile walls. All standard sheet pile sections are included within the program. DeepEX. DeepEX can evaluate regular sheet piles as well as more complex cofferdam sheet pile walls.
One of the first steps in the sheet pile wall analysis is to determine the wall displacements, bending moments, and support reactions. Once bending moments are determined, the pile can be resized from the original analysis to meet the required performance criteria. The following image presents a double cofferdam wall analyzed with the DeepEX software program:
Once the bracing linear forces are determined from our main analysis, a full frame analysis can be performed. With our DeepEX software since both capabilities are connected, we were able to prepare the model below and optimize all steel sections in less than 5 minutes.
Training Video: Sheet pile types, modeling and analysis results in DeepEX:
