Braced Excavations

- DR. AKANKSHA TYAGI

 • Braced excavations consist of sheet piles driven into the soil
to form the sides of an excavation such as in the construction
Introduction of bridge piers, abutments, and basements.
• As excavation proceeds within the area enclosed by the sheet
piles, struts are added to keep the sheet piles in place.

Photo courtesy: Muni Budhu

https://www.deepexcavation.com/en/braced-excavations-struts-crosslot

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 Types of Braced cuts

• One type uses the soldier beam which

is driven into the ground before
excavation and is a vertical steel or
timber beam.
• Laggings, which are horizontal timber
planks, are placed between soldier
beams as the excavation proceeds.
• When the excavation reaches the
desired depth, wales and struts
(horizontal steel beams) are installed.
The struts are compression members.
Soldier beams are H-piles which are
driven at suitable spacing of 1.5 to
2.5 m. around the boundary of the
proposed excavation

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 Types of braced cuts
• In this case, interlocking sheet piles
are driven into the soil before
excavation.
• Wales and struts are inserted
immediately after excavation reaches
the appropriate depth.

• The lateral thrust from the sides is resisted by horizontal members called
Struts which are placed across the excavation.
• Struts may be of the steel or wood.
• Set of Wales and Struts are inserted as the excavation progresses.
• Process is continued till the excavation is complete.

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Design of Braced Excavations

• To design braced excavations (i.e., to select wales, struts, sheet piles,

and soldier beams), the lateral earth pressure must be estimated
• In previous lectures, the total active force per unit length of the wall
was calculated using the general wedge theory
• However, that analysis does not provide the relationships required for
estimating the variation of lateral pressure with depth, which is a
function of several factors, such as the type of soil, the experience of
the construction crew, the type of construction equipment used etc.
• Therefore, empirical pressure envelopes developed from field
observations are used for the design of braced cuts

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 Pressure- Envelope for Braced cuts

Each strut should be designed for the maximum

load to which it may be subjected.

If P1, P2, P3, P4 are measured strut loads, s is the

centre-to-centre spacing of struts. The apparent
horizontal pressures are given as,

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Pressure- Envelope for Braced cuts

As observed from the Berlin subway cut, Munich subway cut, and New
York subway cut, Peck (1969) provided the envelope of apparent-lateral-
pressure diagrams for design of cuts in sand, soft to medium clay and in
stiff clay

Larger of

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Points to remember

1. They apply to excavations having depths greater than about 6 m.

2. They are based on the assumption that the water table is below the
bottom of the cut.
3. Sand is assumed to be drained with zero pore water pressure.
4. Clay is assumed to be undrained and pore water pressure is not
considered

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Design of Struts

 Struts should have a minimum vertical spacing of about 2.75 m or

more.
 Struts are horizontal columns subjected to bending. The load-carrying
capacity of columns depends on their slenderness ratio.
 For braced cuts in clayey soils, the depth of the first strut below the
ground surface should be less than the depth of tensile crack zc.

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 Design of Struts
Step 1: Draw pressure envelope for the cut and show
proposed strut levels such as A, B,C and D.
A
Step 2: The sheet piles are assumed to be hinged at
the strut levels, except for the top and bottom one
i.e. A and D. B B1
B2
Step 3: Determine the reactions for two simple C C1
cantilever beams (A and D) and reactions for all other
C2
simple beams between (B1, B2, C1 and C2)
D
Step 4: Strut loads are calculated as follows

Knowing the strut loads allows selection of the proper

sections from the steel construction manual.

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Example. A 7-m deep braced cut in sand is shown in Fig. below. In the
plan the struts are placed at s=2m center to center. Using Peck’s
empirical pressure diagram, calculate the design strut loads

5m
1m Sand
A
φ‘= 30 degrees
γ= 16 kN/m3
2m
B

2m
C

2m

Bottom of cut

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Solution

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Pressure Envelope for Cuts in Layered
Soil
Sometimes, layers of both sand and clay are encountered when a
braced cut is being constructed. In this case, Peck (1943) proposed that
an equivalent value of cohesion (φ=0) should be determined according
to the formula

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 Pressure Envelope for Cuts in Layered
Soil

Once the average values of cohesion and unit weight are determined, the
pressure envelopes in clay can be used to design the cuts.

When several clay layers are encountered, the average undrained cohesion
becomes

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 STABILITY OF BRACED CUTS IN
SATURATED CLAY
Case 1: When the clay below the cut is homogeneous at least up to a depth
equal 0.7 B where B is the width of the cut.
Case 2: When a hard stratum is met within a depth equal to 0.7 B.

Full plastic failure zone will be formed

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Case 1: Formation of Full Plastic Failure
Zone Below the Bottom of Cut

The undrained cohesive strength of soil is cu

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 Case 2: When the Formation of Full
Plastic Zone is Restricted by the
Presence of a Hard Layer

A factor of safety of 1.5 is recommended

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BJERRUM AND EIDE (1956) METHOD
OF ANALYSIS
•The method of analysis discussed earlier gives reliable results provided
the width of the braced cut is larger than the depth of the excavation
and that the braced cut is very long.
•In the cases where the braced cuts are rectangular, square or circular in
plan or the depth of excavation exceeds the width of the cut, the
following analysis should be used.

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References

Principles of Foundation Engineering by Braja M. Das (Seventh edition)

Principles of Geotechnical Engineering by Braja M. Das (Fifth edition)
Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering by Muni Budhu (Third
edition)
NPTEL lecture

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