Location
New York, New York
Date
16 Apr 2004, 8:00am - 9:30am
Abstract
The design, construction, and collapse of an excavation support system constructed through layered soils are presented in this paper. The braced soldier-pile and lagging shoring was installed through soft clay, with the base of the excavation in hard glacial deposits. Complicating factors included the use of soil berms for temporary support, construction sequencing, weather conditions, and the location of the failed section near a re-entrant corner of the shoring system. Rapid responses of all contract parties and careful evaluation of the failure causes limited subsequent safety and damage concerns, and no claims were made. Post-failure examination of the preceding events provides several insights into potential better specification practices. Theoretical comparison of soil strength and structural engineering principles demonstrate the true failure mechanisms in spite of several implied causes suggested at the outset of the investigation.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Boone, S. J. and Westland, J., "Failure of an Excavation Support System" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 30.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session05/30
Failure of an Excavation Support System
New York, New York
The design, construction, and collapse of an excavation support system constructed through layered soils are presented in this paper. The braced soldier-pile and lagging shoring was installed through soft clay, with the base of the excavation in hard glacial deposits. Complicating factors included the use of soil berms for temporary support, construction sequencing, weather conditions, and the location of the failed section near a re-entrant corner of the shoring system. Rapid responses of all contract parties and careful evaluation of the failure causes limited subsequent safety and damage concerns, and no claims were made. Post-failure examination of the preceding events provides several insights into potential better specification practices. Theoretical comparison of soil strength and structural engineering principles demonstrate the true failure mechanisms in spite of several implied causes suggested at the outset of the investigation.
