e-ISSN: 2582-5208

International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science

( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com

PARAMETRIC STUDY OF DIAPHRAGM WALL

Shravika Birwadkar 1, Gayatri Kolse2, Swaranjali Teli3, Tanuja Taur4,
Dr. Shruti Wadalkar5
*1,2,3,4UG, Student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Dr. D.Y.Patil Institute of Technology, Pimpri-Pune,
Maharashtra, India
*5Associate Professor., Dept. of Civil Engineering, Dr. D.Y.Patil Institute of Technology, Pimpri-
Pune, Maharashtra, India
ABSTRACT
In deep excavation/foundation, weak/poor soil conditions, or congested site conditions, a diaphragm wall is a
frequent type of earth retention design. Diaphragm walls are commonly employed in building basements,
congested metropolitan locations, metro rail stations, riverfront constructions, and maritime structures. Here, a
net is considered that will account for soil variation and provide speedy, optimum results. Diaphragm wall
parametric research with varied wall widths, concrete grade, soil property below dredge line, and diaphragm
wall with secondary wall.
Keywords : parametric study, diaphragm wall, deep foundation, Retaining Structure.
I. INTRODUCTION
Infrastructure plays a vital role in a metropolis. Due to Explosive growth of cities in developing countries and,
increase in demand for improved livability and environmental protection has created a strong demand for new
underground development. The population of India in urban areas keeps increasing year by year due to
urbanization. In 1950 as many as 357 million people lived in urban areas and the number increased to 1009
million in 2000 (UN 2002 Report).It is expected that the number will reach 1409 million in 2030.As many mega
cities show, there is a limit of how far cities can sprawl. One way of dealing with the problems of urban space
scarcity is by building upwards. Indeed, high-rise buildings have for years been the manifesting example of how
to create more space on a limited amount of land. However, office space or living space is not the only
demanded space in cities.
Underground space refers to a space that is situated below the ground level. Underground land can also be
defined as land which lies below the surface of the earth. It means anything below the surface land can be
considered as underground land. Underground development will create more space above ground for many
purposes especially for recreation and social activities and development of new green fields and residential
areas. Looking back, the underground space has been exploited for thousands of years, for strategic and
military purposes, for religious building, for water and sanitation conveyance and military purposes. It is only
later that the underground has been deeply used for transportation, commercial building and other
infrastructure, such as tunneling and integrated railway transport. India is also not excluded from urbanization
issues. Based on the number of urban density and urbanization, urban development in India is growing rapidly.
It means the consideration for using urban underground space for development must be given full attention.
Underground utilization patterns vary in different urban contexts, depending on the local culture, geographical
situation, social environment and economic needs. In underground construction deep excavation is required
and for deep excavation earth retaining structure is needed. Diaphragm wall is the most common earth
retaining structure in deep excavation /foundation weak /poor soil conditions. In this work different types of
Diaphragm wall have been carried out.Also the parametric study of diaphragm wall has been done through case
study.
1.1 TYPES OF DIAPHRAGM WALL
A diaphragm wall is a structural concrete wall constructed in a deep trench excavation, either cast in situ or
using precast concrete components. Diaphragms walls are often used on congested sites, close to
existing structures, where there is restricted headroom, or where the excavation is of a depth that would
otherwise require the removal of much greater volumes of soil to provide stable battered slopes.

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( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com
Diaphragm walls are suitable for most subsoil and their installation generates only a small amount
of vibration and noise, which increases their suitability for works carried out close to existing structures. In
addition, floor slab connections and recessed formwork can be incorporated into the walls.
The walls generally range in thickness from 500 - 1,500 mm and can be excavated to depths of over 50
m. Excavation is typically carried out using rope-suspended mechanical or hydraulically-operated grabs.
Specific ground conditions or greater depths may require the use of hydro mills – hydraulically-
operated reverse circulation trench cutters – to penetrate into hard rock by ‘cutting’ rather than ‘digging’.
Hydro mills can achieve depths of up to 80 m.
Depending on the use of construction materials there are the following types of diaphragm walls:
a) Rigid type
1) Reinforced cement concrete
b) Flexible type
1) Plastic concrete,
2) Cement betonites slurry trench, and
3) Earth backfill slurry trench.
Depending on the function the following kinds of diaphragm walls are used:
1) Structural walls
2) Load Bearing Elements
3) Cut-off walls
a) Structural Diaphragm walls: they are used as retaining walls for the perimeter walls of deep basements
and underground parking facilities, subways, underpasses, etc.
b) Load bearing walls: they are used in place of drilled piers in foundation of tall buildings, bridge piers, etc
c) Cut-off walls: in hydraulic structures diaphragm walls are used as impermeable cut-offs to prevent seepage
below earth dams, weirs, and levees.
II. PARAMETRIC STUDY IF DIAPHRAGM WALL
The structural design of the diaphragm wall is complex because it acts as both temporary as well as permanent
structural system in cut-and-cover structures. So, the structural analysis of diaphragm wall in cut-and-cover
structures requires two types of analysis:
(1) Construction stage analysis, and
(2) Permanent stage analysis.
Construction stage analysis
To obtain the design forces in the diaphragm wall for construction induced loads (such as construction or
vehicular surcharge, building surcharge and differential hydrostatic pressure etc.). In construction stage
analysis, the horizontal deflection of diaphragm wall and settlement of soil behind diaphragm wall are in
general limited to 30mm to 40mm and 25mm. For our present study construction stage analysis is carried out
by using geotechnical software such as WALLAP or PLAXIS
Permanent stage analysis
To calculate the design forces in diaphragm wall and structural slabs (1.e. roof, concourse and base slab) for
permanent loads (such as self-weight, soil backfill weight, earth pressure, water pressure, uplift, public live
load, vehicular live load, train live load, derailment load and earthquake loads etc.) during operation/service.
The structure is analyzed for various critical load combinations as per 1S:456 for both ultimate limit state (ULS)
and serviceability limit state (SLS) conditions. For our present study, the permanent stage analysis is carried
out by using STAAD Pro. In this study permanent stage analysis of the diaphragm wall is done.
In the present work for the parametric study and the geotechnical data of soil at the coastal area of CST,Mumbai
city has considered which is shown in Table no.1.

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International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science
( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com
Table No-1:Geotechnical data of soil
Depth from Soil type Ysat Es Vs Ф
GL (kN/m^3) (MPa) (deg)
(m)
1.5 Filled up soil 19 8 0.35 28
10 Silty sand 19.5 12 0.38 31
15 Silty sand 19.5 15 0.38 31
20 Silty sand 19.5 25 0.38 31
25 Silty sand 21 75 0.38 39
27 CWR 22 200 0.26 45
- SWR 26 5000 0.22 65
Where,
Ysat is saturated unit weight of soil
Es is modulus of elasticity of soil
Vs is Poisson’s ratio of soil
CWR and SWR are completely and slightly weathered rock
2.1 STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS
The schematic representation of a typical two-level cut and cover structure with geometric dimensions is
shown in Fig. 1.A Concrete Grade of M40 is adopted for diaphragm wall and slabs. The thickness of structural
components considered for the present study is given below.
● Base slab thickness 1.3 m
● Roof slab thickness 1.2 m
● Concourse slab thickness 1.0 m
● Diaphragm wall thickness 1.0 m
● Clear width of station 16.5 m

Fig. 1 : Section of Diaphragm Wall

2.2 Support conditions
The soil structure interaction for the cut-and-cover structure in STAAD Pro is modeled by using ground
reaction springs: The vertical springs on base slab (linear compression only) and horizontal springs on

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 e-ISSN: 2582-5208
International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science
( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com
diaphragm wall below base slab (linear) to represent the soil strata has been calculated by using the available
geotechnical parameters.
Table. 2 : Parameters of Support Conditions
PARAMETER UNIT VALUE
Grade of concrete MPa 40
Elastic modulus of concrete KPa 3.2E+0.7
Thickness of Base slab M 1.30
Width of Base slab M 1.00
Poisson’s ratio of soil - 0.38
Elastic modulus of soil kN/m^2 25000
Moment of inertia of slab m^4 0.183
Subgrade modulus kN/m^3 12065

III. MODELING AND ANALYSIS

3.1 STAAD Pro
Structural Design and analysis is done by using software STAAD PRO. STAAD is the abbreviation for Structural
Analysis and Design. STAAD. Pro is one of the effective software that is used for analyzing and designing
structures like buildings, towers, bridges, industrial, transportation and utility structures. It supports all types
of various steel, concrete, and timber design codes.
It ensures on-time and budget-friendly completion of structures and designs related to steel, concrete, timber,
aluminum, and cold-formed steel projects, irrelevant to the complexities. STAAD Pro helps structural engineers
to automate their tasks by removing the tedious and long procedures of the manual methods. It allows civil
engineers to analyze and design various types of structures on virtual platforms.
3.2 STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF DIAPHRAGM WALL
The design forces (such as bending moment and shear force) are obtained on both faces (i.e., soil face and
excavation face) of diaphragm wall from construction stage as well as permanent stage analysis at various
levels for ULS and SLS conditions.
Following design parameters are considered for diaphragm wall design.
● Design cover = 80mm
● Nominal cover for crack width = 45mm
● Allowable crack width = 0.25mm
During the construction of the diaphragm wall, the concrete is to be placed under the slurry
(bentonite/polymer). In such cases, the design compressive strength and shear strength of structural concrete
shall be reduced in comparison to the adopted concrete grade. Hence for the proposed diaphragm wall design,
the characteristic strength of the compressive and shear stress is considered as 80% of the characteristic
strength of the adopted concrete grade (i.e. M40). Table no.3, shows geometric data of diaphragm wall and
Table no.4,shows various loads on the diaphragm wall.
3.3 LOAD CALCULATION
GEOMETRIC DATA
Table .3 : Geometric data
Thickness of Wall 0.8m
Thickness of Top Slab 1.0m
Thickness of Concourse Slab 0.6m
Thickness of Bottom Slab 1.2m

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INTENSITIES:
Table. 4 :Intensities
Construction Stage live load on concourse slab 10 KN/m^2
Live load surcharge for base slab 50 KN/m^2
Live load surcharge for roof slab 20 KN/m^2
Live load for concourse slab 10 KN/m^2
Material properties are also considered for the diaphragm wall which are shown in Table no.5
Table.5 : Properties of Material
1 Grade of concrete for external wall M40
2 Grade of concrete for slab M40
3 Grade of concrete for main column M60
4 Grade of steel Fe500
5 Density of Concrete 25 KN/m^3
6 Density of floor finish 24 KN/ m^3
7 Density of backfill soil 20 KN/ m^3
8 Thickness of platform slab 0.2 m
9 Thickness of platform slab supported wall 0.25 m
10 Height of platform supported wall 2.53 m
11 Clear width of station 21.2 m
12 Width of platform slab 12.02 m
13 Clear height between roof and concourse slab 5.5 m
14 Clear height between concourse slab and base slab 7.23 m
15 Thickness of floor finish on concourse slab 0.15 m
16 Thickness of floor finish on platform slab 0.1 m
By using above data the model has also been developed in Staad Pro which is shown in fig.,2.

Fig. 5 :Typical cut and cover structure model in Staad Pro

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International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science
( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com
4.2 PERMANENT STAGE ANALYSIS
In this study, the permanent stage analysis is carried out by using STAAD Pro to calculate the design forces in
diaphragm wall and structural slabs under permanent loads during operation/service. Following primary loads
are considered for the permanent stage analysis of cut-and-cover structure, which are given in Table no.6

Table. 6 : Peak design forces for analysis

D wall Thickness 0.8 m 1.0 m 1.2 m
Bending moment (kNm) 2715 3513 4305
Shear force(kN) 1181 1297 1458
Displacement (mm) 57 47 40

.
Fig. 3: Bending Moment Envelope Fig. 4 : Shear Force Envelope
4.3 EFFECT OF DIAPHRAGM WALL THICKNESS
Analyses have been carried out with three different Diaphragm wall thickness values i.e. 0.8m, 1.0m and 1.2m
and the results obtained from the construction stage and permanent stage are presented. The peak design force
from the construction stage analysis is summarized below.
The graphical representation of bending moment and shear force are shown in the fig.3 and fig.4.

Fig. 5 : Thickness vs Bending moment graph

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Fig. 6 : Thickness vs Shear force graph

Fig. 7 : Thickness vs Displacement Graph

From the graph it is observed that as the thickness increases the bending moment and shear force increases.
And in thickness vs displacement graph as the thickness increases displacement decreases.
IV. CONCLUSION
Parametric study has also been carried out for three different thicknesses of the diaphragm wall to understand
the structural behavior. From the above parametric study following conclusions are being made.
(1) Construction stage analysis governs the diaphragm wall reinforcement in soil face. However, the permanent
stage analyses govern the diaphragm wall reinforcement in the excavation face.
(2) Increase in diaphragm wall thickness significantly reduces the horizontal deflection. By using 1.0m thick
diaphragm wall the reduction in horizontal deflection is in the range of 18% and by using 1.2m thick diaphragm
wall the reduction is in the range of 43% compared to 0.8m thick diaphragm wall.
(3) Increase in diaphragm wall thickness leads to significant increase in bending moment and shear force By
using 1.2m thick diaphragm wall, the increase in bending moment is in the range of 59% and increase in shear
force is in the range of 23% comparing 0.8m thick diaphragm wall in construction stage analysis.
(4) The increase in bending moment and shear force with respect to diaphragm wall thickness is significant in
construction stage analysis compared to permanent stage and hence the construction stage analysis is crucial
for diaphragm wall design.
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International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science
( Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Fully Refereed International Journal )
Volume:04/Issue:07/July-2022 Impact Factor- 6.752 www.irjmets.com
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