Suitability Evaluation of Lateral Earth Pressure for Design Diaphragm Walls applied to the Top-Down Construction Method

ABSTRACT The Rankine(1857)’s earth pressure and the Hong and Yun(1995a)’s earth pressure was applied to analyze the lateral displacement of diaphragm wall applied to the Top-Down construction method using the computer program, which is a common design program for diaphragm wall. The lateral displacement estimated by the computer program was compared with the lateral displacement measured by inclinometer. The Rankine’s earth pressure has been widely used to design the diaphragm wall in the analysis of computer program. As the result of comparison, the lateral displacement of diaphragm wall was predicted differently according to the applied earth pressures. The behavior of lateral displacement predicted by the Rankine’s earth pressure was different with displacement measured by inclinometer and the lateral displacement at the bottom part was overestimated. However, the lateral displacement predicted by the Hong and Yun’s earth pressure is similar to the behavior and maximum value of real displacement. Therefore, the Hong and Yun’s earth pressure is more suitable than the Rankine' earth pressure to design the diaphragm walls applied to the Top-Down Construction Method.