Lateral Earth Pressures Acting on Anchored Diaphragm Walls and Deformation Behavior of Walls during Excavation

Lateral earth pressure and horizontal displacement of the diaphragm walls constructed in multi-soil layers were analyzed by the field instrumentation from six building construction sites in urban area. The distribution of the developed earth pressure of the anchored diaphragm walls during excavation shows approximately a trapezoid diagram. The maximum earth pressure of anchored diaphragm walls corresponds to and the earth pressure acts at the upper part of the walls. The maximum earth pressure is two times larger than the empirical earth pressure of flexible walls in sands suggested by Terzaghi and Peck(1967), Tschebotarioff(1973), and Hong and Yun(1995a). The horizontal displacement of diaphragm walls is closely related with supporting systems such as struts, anchors, and so on. The horizontal displacement of anchored walls shows less than 0.1 percent of the excavated depth, and the horizontal displacement of strutted walls shows less than 0.25 percent of the excavated depth. Therefore, the restraining effect of horizontal displacement to the anchored diaphragm walls is larger than the strutted diaphragm walls. In addition, since the horizontal displacement of the diaphragm walls is lower than the criterion, , used for control the anchored retention wall using soilder piles, the safety of excavation sites applied with the diaphragm walls is pretty excellent.