Construction of sheet pile retaining walls in urban and coastal regions has resulted in sheet pile walls in close proximity to laterally loaded pile foundations. There is currently little information available in the literature to assist engineers in quantifying the response of sheet pile walls when little distance separates the two structures. This study provides a quantitative method for estimating sheet pile wall response due to loads imposed from a nearby laterally loaded pile. Three dimensional finite element analyses were performed to assess the response of a sheet pile wall and nearby laterally loaded pile. The soil (medium dense sand) was modeled using the Drucker-Prager constitutive model, and the sheet pile wall and pile foundation were assumed to behave linear elastic. Five parameters influencing sheet pile wall response were investigated: sheet pile wall bending stiffness, distance from the pile face to the wall, excavation depth in front of the sheet pile wall, elastic modulus of the soil, and the soil friction angle. Results from the analyses have been used to develop preliminary design charts and simple equations for estimating the maximum horizontal displacement and maximum bending moment in the sheet pile wall. Estimates of sheet pile wall response using the design charts and simple equations are generally within ??10% of the response obtained from the three dimensional numerical analyses with a maximum difference of ??30%.
Abstract