A Two-Dimensional Numerical Study on Cantilever Sheet Pile Wall Embedded in Dense Sand

Sheet piles are required in deep excavation during construction work in crowded urban areas nearby to existing structures. A two-dimensional finite element (FE) method has been applied to study the lateral earth pressure (EP), wall deflection, and bending moment of sheet piles with strip foundation load placed at the top edge of the wall in dense sand. The excavation of front-fill soil is done sequentially in four layers. A parametric study is executed by changing the magnitude of the surcharge load and the wall penetration depth to find the behavior of the sheet pile. The result shows lateral EP, wall deflection, and bending moment increase with surcharge magnitude. A 1.60, 6.17, and 8.50 times higher value of maximum net lateral EP, maximum wall deflection, and maximum bending moment respectively, has been produced when 125 kPa surcharge is applied as compared to sheet pile without any surcharge load. Moreover, the influence of wall penetration depth below 8 m significantly affects the maximum wall deflection and maximum bending moment, while wall penetration depth above 8 m give higher stability to the wall. The present numerical model validation has been done with the available literature.