Performance of a 30 m Deep Instrumented Diaphragm Wall

M. M. Soares
Associate Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

SYNOPSIS This paper summarises the performance of the second instrumented research section of the
Rio de Janeiro underground. The first aim of this programme was to establish a simple procedure
to design diaphragm walls in soft clay soils. The model of a beam on elastic supports was chosen
due to its simplicity and usefulness in the prediction of the wall behaviour. The concrete wall
was built using the slurry trench technique and was instrumented to measure the concrete strain, the
load on the reinforcement bars, the horizontal displacement and the horizontal earth pressure.
It was measured the loads in the two level of struts. The geotechnical profile consists of a soft
layer between two layers of sand. The surrounding soil received instruments to measure the pore
water pressure, the horizontal and vertical displacements at different locations. This paper
presents the comparison between predicted and measured values during the second stage of excavation.

SPT PARTICLE SIZE

INTRODUCTION BOREHOLE A.533 w ., ,.., ..l llkN/o'l DIBT~BUTJON l¾l
0 10 20 3010 30 SO 10 D 30 60 100 O .OS 0.11S 11,S 20 0 40 80
The Civil Engineering Department of the
Coordination of the Post-graduation Programmes
SANllS
in Engineering (COPPE) of the Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) instrumented and
observed the behaviour of the Rio de Janeiro ,-4 ..
underground construction in nine places. The 10

~
..
....
instrumentation was undertaken in the majority DRuANJC
of the places to reduce risks of damage to the
surrounding buildings. Two test sections were
instrumented to furnish data to establish a
simple procedure for designing diaphragm walls
l
i5
15
SILTY
CLAY

- ....L.
\ .666

~ 20
in clay soils, as well as to improve other ,I....
methods of design and develop instrumentation
techniques. This paper summarizes some of the 25
field measurements made at the second
instrumented section and compares the predicted
l0
and measured performance during the second 6 IJU TRIAXIAL TESTS -CLAY
stage of the excavation works. More details CJSLT
about the performance of this test section can llllilS-"'D
be found in the DSc thesis of the author
(Soares, 1981). Fig. 1. SOIL PROPERTIES SUMMARY FIRST PROGRAM OF
INVESTIGATION

SOIL CONDITIONS The 120 cm thick, 30 m deep concrete wall

Knowledge of the soil properties was obtained
in two distinct programmes. The first
investigation programme was carried out to
design the wall and the second to give
additional information about the soil parameters
thus permitting more realistic analysis of the
behaviour of the instrumented test section.
The first programme consisted of borings with
standard penetration tests every 0.5 m and
laboratory index tests on disturbed samples.
Conventional compressibility and shear strength
laboratory tests were carried out on 50 and
100 mm shelby samples. Figure 1 shows some
results from this programme. The most important
layer for the design is the clay layer 15 m
deep with SPT about 2 and cone point resistance
60 kN/m 2 • On that occasion the Designer
decided to adopt for safety and undrained shear
strength equal to 30 kN/m 2 •
supported at two strut levels was designed by
applying the standard design procedures used for
by the Rio de Janeiro Underground Company. These
procedures were based on the free earth support
and fixed earth support methods. At the same
time it was decided to instrument a typical
section to give more data to establish an
improved procedure applicable to the design of
concrete walls in soft clay soils.
The second programme of soil investigation with
two phases was started at the same time as the
installation of the instruments and excavation
in the area. The first phase of this programme
consisted of:
• boreholes for installation of the
instruments and soil sampling with some
standard penetration tests

405
 • conventional laboratory tests on TABLE I
undisturbed soil samples (shelby and Average undrained shear
block) strength ( kN/m 2 )
• standard laboratory tests on concrete Routine High quality
samples obtained from the wall Depth Layer contractors block samples Su (kN/m 2
• in situ tests - deepsoundering, vane and (ml UU Triaxial UU Triaxial Adopted
pressuremeter Tests Tests
7-13 Sandy Clay 45 75 80
Figure 2 shows data obtained from this first
phase of the second programme. The distribution 13-19 Silty Clay 20 - 40
of the undrained shear strength adopted in 19-22 Sandy Clay 45 - 90
calculations in this paper is given in Table 1.
The values of the SPT's in the different borings 22-25 Silty Clay 40 - 80
and at different depths were valuable in
establishing this adopted undrained shear The second phase consisted of special laboratoi
strength distribution. It was impossible to tests on undisturbed samples to establish the
improve the quality of the site investigation stress-strain behaviour of the soils on differE
because the work was performed by a Private stress paths. These tests are being carried rn
Contractor not under our control. The adopted at our laboratory COPPE-UFRJ. Initial results
values presented on Table 1 are believed to showed that the adopted undrained shear streng·
represent the most likely undrained shear represents satisfactorily this soil property.
strength profile. The relation between the initial modulus of
deformability in undrained extension tests and
the undrained shear strength does not vary muC:
with OCR and for practical purposes a value
between 200 and 300 can be utilised for this
relationship. More information about the soil
STANDARD PENETRATION SIHPLIFIEO CLASSIFICATION TESTS parameters can be found on Lins (1980) and
TEST ISPTl DISTRIBUTION
OF THE Correa ( 1 98 1 ) .
10 20 30 LAYERS 0 20 40 60 80 100¾

0 FIELD INSTRUMENTATION
SAND

The instrumented area was chosen in a place

_, -
sufficiently distant from buildings to make th
10 SANDY
analyses of the data easier.
CLAY

SILTY G.L
CLAY EXTERNAL FACE INTERNAL FACE

,,...•, ==--
[~ 1. LEVEL
,_ ,,..,n,
' OF STRUTS
~-1,r..0111111 .,,,.....·
I!
20 SANDY FINE ' X

..,
CLAY SAND· 2, LEVEL

SILTY
25 t--===--==-+----=Cl~A:;_Y_---'
- I •;;JO•· ..
.a, l
OF STRUTS
=- X

COARSE
SAND
i,o l 0
,. X

30 ' - - - - - - - - - - - ' - - - - - .,
. ",
0
SPT AVERAGE
SPT BOREHOLE SL-04
-
D
¾ CLAY }
¾ SILT
PARTICLE
SIZE I,, CLAY
z

~ ¾ SAND DISTRIBUTION Su•40k

.
'
~ LIO.UID LIHIT
g
... f
v PLASTICITY LIMIT
:,: 20 CLAY
NATURAL WATER CONTENT
fl,
C, ~~w~/~. ...
\I]:
-.
Fig. 2. DEFINITION OF THE SIMPLIFIED DISTRIBUTION OF . 25
CLAY
s,clQ!<N/ml ... ---;-~

THE LAYERS COARSE •.

Ill "
SAND

30
•=35° · ~.r
I
CAGE A CAGE 8 CAGE A CAGE B
KEY

00 - 9 TOTAL EARTH PRESSURE CELL MOS 72

0 - 10 BAR EXTENSOMETERS MOS 24

I • 37 CONCRETE EXTENSOMETERS MOS 53a
ID - NULL INDICATORS

Fig. 3. PANEL INSTRUMENTATION

406
 ~re 3 shows the instrumented diaphragm wall CONSTRUCTION AND MEASUREMENTS DURING THE SECOND
el with the transducers to measure the STAGE OF EXCAVATION
crete strain at 16 sections, reinforcement
loads at 5 sections and total horizontal The 1 .2 m thick and 30.0 m deep concrete
th pressure at 9 positions. The installation diaphragm wall was built by the slurry trench
cedures for these instruments has been technique excavated in panels 7.5 m long. The
cribed elsewhere (Soares, 1983). bentonite slurr¥ used has a specific gravity
about 10.5 kN/m. Each panel had a preassembled
ure 4 shows the soil instrumentation steel reinforcing cage weighing 350 kN.
centrated near the instrumented panel. Pore
ssures were measured near the wall inside and The excavation between the concrete walls was
side the excavation by pneumatic piezometers. done in three stages; excavation started on
December 8th, and took 85 days to reach the
final level 13 m deep. Figure 5 portrays the
progress of the construction. The walls were
supported at two levels by steel beams 1.80 m
apart and not preloaded.

- - - - 14,80 - - - .

__,_,_________............__..........
FIRST LEVEL OF STRUTS 12.30ml
___ __________ _____
.__ ..._

-----------------------
SECOND LEVEL OF STRUTS 15,90ml

10

12
14 ,L__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ...J

120 F
KEY ,u•x, ~ MINjMIIM
100 151 • 153 --0--
L:~LI·
.
1st.

ii
~30
• · COARSE
· ·SAND . . 80
60
LEVEL 1sz• 1s,1---
2nd. 251 • 2S3 1--0--
LEVELi 2S2 • ZSJ. ,_..,.__ I.EYE 2n:·J
1000

200 .
,so
,
&00

100
I
I
KEY RESIDUAL SOIL
40
/J
20 , -~--.a_- ...... - ❖ ---=--::.=~·
• • 12 PIEZOHETERS ~ ,
• · 17 SETTLEMENT GAUGES
o · 6 RING MAGNET HEAVE GAUGES "SPIDER" 100
0 2 4 6m
.!. • INCUNOHETER TUBES SCALE 1ml ---- 80
60

Fig. 4. SOIL INSTRUMENTATION I 40

....-s::--::::;;:::::::::~ __ _,... ___ ......, ___ ....,. __ _
,-
z
ll!
i
20
,...,.
a',,,.,.--
~-- ---
-20
"'~
.
15 -40
-60
-80
-100
1e vibrating wire piezometer was installed 5 W fi ~ ~ ~ 5 W fi ~ ~ ~ 10 15 20 25 30
1side the excavation near its final level. JANUARY I FEBRUARY I MARCH I APRIL
~en inclinometer tubes were installed, six in
~ soil behind the wall at different distances Fig. 5. LOADS AND BENDING MOMENTS MEASURED ON THE
>art and one in the centre of the wall. The STRUT 5.
>rizontal movements of the tubes were measured
.th digitilt inclinometers models 50301 and
)306 manufactured by SINCO. The settlements at
,fferent positions were measured by means of
1rvey control and the bottom heave on the
!ntre of the excavation at different depths was
!asu~ed with ring magnet gauges. Strut loads Figure 5 also shows the loads and t.~e bending
!re monitored by four vibrating wire moments measured in one of the seven instrumented
ctensometers distributed in two sections. struts. There was very good agreement between
the measured loads at the two ends of the struts.
The maximum average and minimum loads at the
end of excavation are 560, 420, 340 and 110, 90,
60 kN/m for the first and second bracing level
respectively.

407
 Figure 6 shows the concrete strain measured at
the end of the second stage of excavation
(before installation of the second level of
struts). From these measurements, the bending
moments in each section of the wall were
calculated assuming a linear distribution of
the strain at each section and a value for the
Young's modulus of the concrete of 30 x 10 6 kN/m 2•
'!'his value of elasticity modulus was slightly
higher than the average (28 x 10 6 kN/m 2 ) obtained
in the static tests on concrete samples obtained
from the wall. The value of this modulus from
dynamic tests showed a good homogeneity of the
concrete with the depth of the wall and the
average value was 3 6 x 1O6 kN/m 2 •
HORIZOHTAl STRAIN lx11t·•1
lll5PLACEl'EH'I
G.J. 0 :i40 1 EXT:SION
r---r-;-----...;10+.:0-----=izo::.o---+ 0
30
~-....._-..1....._..J__ _ __.J_
J([Y
• ~LFACE
o EXTEAIIALFACE
0 NIU IGCATORS
Fig. 6. CONCRETE STRAIN DURING THE SECOND ST AGE
OF EXCAVATION.
C<»ll'ARISON BETWEEN PREDICTED AND MEASURED VALUES
The importance of establishing a simple design
procedure was the aim at the first stage of the
analysis of the instrumentation data. The
simple procedure must be able to predict the
loads on the struts, the distribution of the
~nding IIIOilllent and the horizontal displacement
o the wall. The settlement of the surroundin
ground, could be estimated from the horizontalg
movements using an existing method (for example
Caspe, 1966; Juca, 1981). This simple
procedure could then be incorporated into the
design approach suggested by Rio de Janeiro
Underground System (RJUS).
Empirical and semi empirical methods such as t
apparent earth pressure, free earth support an
fixed earth support, were used to predict the
behaviour of the instrumented section. The
apparent earth pressure method as described by
Terzaghi and Peck (1967) only estimates the
maximum loads on the struts. The generalisati
of this method as suggested by some authors do
not give a reasonable prediction of the bendin
moments in the wall. The use of the free and
fixed-earth-support methods does not give good
results either. It was suggested (Soares, 198
that these methods should not be applied to th
design of diaphragm walls in clay soils.
The finite element method was not adopted, at
this stage of the analysis, due to the
difficulties of simulating excavation and in
most field cases the necessary data is not
available. The author believes that
sophisticated analytical techniques may be no
more appropriate than simpler solutions when
these are used with engineering judgement.
COMPRESSION ~
30
From its first use it was seen that the model
a beam on elastic supports (Winkler hypothesis
could be useful in the prediction of the wall
behaviour. Many suggestions were obtained frc
Fages et al (1971a, 1971b and 1973), Dalerci a
Torrigiani (1976) and Miyoshy (1977) and all
available methods were used to estimate the
horizontal coefficient of subgrade reaction.
The structural pattern of the wall was a beam
supported by the struts and by the soil below
the excavation level. These supports behave
like elastic springs. The constants of the
strut springs were determined from the measurE
loads and horizontal displacements. It is
important to remember that the effective
rigidity of the struts depends on the
construction conditions. For preloaded strut!
• INTERNAL FACE this rigidity can be a tenth or less of the
o EXTERNAL FA
0 "NULLS•
30
structural rigidity. For struts that have not
been preloaded the effective rigidity can be
much smaller even than this.
LOAD ON THE STRUTS BENDING MOMENT HORIZONTAL
fkN/m) lkN.m/mJ DISPLACEMENT fmml
1 DO 800
,o
L,\
HYPOTHESES
,s :i
L,\
k, - INTERNAL PRESSURE 20
5
-
DISTRIBUTION
LAYER 6 25
k=1D0DO
30
k,:.~~:.~~TAL
IC,, SPRINO COHSTANT lkNIMJ
Fig. ?. COMPARISON BETWEEN MEASURED VALUES WITH THOSE
PREDICTED BY MIYOSHY METHOD.
408
~he suggestion of Miyoshy (1977) when applied
:o the Botafogo wall conditions gives the
ralues shown on Figure 7. These calculated LOAD ON THE STRUTS BENDING MOMENT HORIZONTAL
DISPLACEMENT Imm!
ralues overpredict the measured bending lkN/ml lkN.m/m.l
~oments, the horizontal displacements and strut 400 200
Loads. Miyoshy (1977) considers the loading on
:he external face to be the active pressure up
:o the level of the excavation and from this
?Oint up to a length equal the width of the
axcavation a linear decrease of the loading
(Figure 7). It was decided to reduce the load
~--I~·~:N: 100 10
LAYER 2
suggested by Miyoshy (1977), after verifying k=8000
that the soil modulus did not have a substantial 15 l
LAYER 3
lnfluence on the results (Figure 7). k=6000
20 ~o
?igure 8 shows the predicted values for a LAYER 4
k:9000
loading equal to the active pressure up to the LAYER s
level of the excavation. This condition gives k=5000 MEASURED · 25
VALUES
a reasonable prediction of all measured values. LAYER 6
k=10000
rhese results show that there was a substantial 12500 0 30
restriction to the change of the stresses in 20000 13
k= lkN/m3!
the soil inside the excavation. 30000 151

2$0000 J:,.

LOAD ON THE STRUTS BENDING HDHENT HDRJZONTAL

lkN/m I lkNm/ml DISPLACEMENT lmml Fig. 9. INFLUENCE OF THE EFFECTIVE RIGIDITY OF THE
STRUTS ON THE VALUES PREDICTED WITH ACTIVE
SOIL PRESSURE ABOVE THE EXCAVATION LEVELS.

LOAD ON THE STRUTS BENDING MOMENT HORIZONTAL

LAYER 3 - INTERNAL PRESSURE lkN/ml DISPLACEMENT Imm!
1st, k • 4000 D OISTRISUTI0N 15 lkN/ml
HYPOTH£SES 2nd. k • 5000 e
= 6000 ISi
LA 4 20
k:9000
LAYER 5
k;;SOOQ 25
LAYER 6 INCLINOMETER
k-10000
30
200
k• MODULUS OF HORIZONTAL REACTION lkN/m3I <·-.......
LAYER 2
'-) !
Fig. 8. COMPARISON BETWEEN MEASURED VALUES WITH THOSE
PREDICTED WITH ACTIVE SOIL PRESSURE ABOVE THE
LAYER 3
KEY
.
i5
e,

EXCAVATION LEVEL. LAYER 4

LAYER 5 k•S00 SPT 0

25
k= 1000 SPT 0
LAYER 6 k= 2000 SPT S
30
k: 5000 SPT fl.
Figure 9 shows the influence of the magnitude
of the effective rigidity of the struts. The
increase of this value increases the maximum
bending moment above the level of the excavation
and decreases the moments in the embedded Fig. 10. INFLUENCE OF THE SOIL MODULUS ON THE PREDICTED
length of the wall. VALUES

Figure 10 portrays the influence of the soil's

modulus. The best value of this modulus was
obtained when using the following relationship:
CONCLUSIONS
k (kN/m 3 ) = 100 to200 Su (kN/m 2 )
The mea.surement of bending moment, strut loads
It was concluded that this value of soil's and horizontal earth pressures at the second
modulus corresponds to the undrained modulus of instrumented section at the Rio de Janeiro
deformability from extension tests. Considering Underground made it possible to develop a simple
a safe relation between SPT and Su this design procedure for diaphragm walls in a
horizontal soil modulus can be estimated by: stratified soil profile with soft clay soils.
The model of a beam on elastic supports has been
k =1oooto1soosPT (kN/m 3 ) used and the horizontal subgrade reaction
modulus has1been related to standard laboratory
and field data.

409
 Symposium on Field Measurements in
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Geomechanics, Zurich, September.
The author wishes to express his appreciation Terzaghi, K. and Peck, R.B. (1967)
to the Rio de Janeiro Underground Company for Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice,
permission to publish the results presented in Wiley.
this paper. To carry out the research
programme and to obtain the mass of summarised
field data required the cooperation and efforts
of all staff of the Soil Mechanics Area from
Civil Engineering Department of COPPE/UFRJ.
The author would particularly like to
acknowledge the cooperation from Prof. P. Carim,
Eng. J.B. Ribas, Prof. w. Lacerda and Prof. D.
Velloso from COPPE/UFRJ and Dr. J.A. Charles
from Building Research Establishment.
Special appreciation is expresseq to the
Brazilian Research Council CNPq for its
financial support during the postdoctoral
programme of the writer and to Building
Research Establishment BRS and the Norwegian
Geotechnical Institute NGI, for receiving him
into this programme.

REFERENCES
Caspe, M.S. (1966)
Surface Settlement Adjacent to Braced Open
Cuts. ASCE, Journal of Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Division, Vol. 92, SM4, pp 51~59.
Correa, M.H.C. (1981)
compressibility Behaviour of Botafogo Soft
Clay on Conventional and Hydraulic Oedometer
Tests. Master of Science Thesis COPPE/UFRJ
(in portuguese).
Dalerci, G and Torrigiani, M. (1976) \
Anchored Bulkheads Embedded into Soil with ·
Non-Linear Elastic Response. Proceedings of\
the Sixth European Conference on Soil '·
Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Wien,
Vol. 1.1, pp. 115-118. \
Fages, R. et Bouyat, c. (1971a) ,
Calcul de Rideaux de Parois Moulees ou de
Palplanches. Travaux October.
Fages, R. et Buyat, c. {1971b)
Calcul de Rideaux de Parois Moulees ou de
Palplanches. Travaux, December, pp. 49-50.
Fages, R. et Gallet, M. (1973)
Calculations for Sheet Piled or Cast in situ
Diaphragm Walls. Civil Engineering and
Public Works Review 68, December,
pp. 1067-1071.
Juca, J.F.T. (1981)
Settlements on Buildings due to Excavations.
Master of Science Thesis, COPPE/UFRJ
(in portuguese).
Lins, A.H.P. (1980)
Extension and Compression Triaxial Tests on
Botafogo Soft Clay. Master of Science Thesis
COPPE/UFRJ {in portuguese).
Miyoshy, M. (1977)
Mechanical Behaviour of Temporary Braced
Walls. Proceedings of the Ninth International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation
Engineering, Tokyo, Vol. 1, pp. 655-658.
Soares, M.M. (1981)
A Simple Procedure to Design Diaphragm Walls
in Clay Soils. Doctor of Science Thesis
COPPE/UFRJ (in portuguese) .
Soares, M.M. (1983)
The Instrumentation of a Diaphragm Wall for
the Excavation for the Rio de Janeiro
Underground. Proceedings International

410