Nonlinear Numerical Study on Performance of Cofferdam with Double-walled Steel Sheet Piles

摘要

At present, there are many international engineering practices ofdouble-walled cofferdam with steel sheet piles. Double-walledcofferdam with steel sheet piles is widely employed in port engineeringdue to its good integrity, construction convenience and multifold testingmeasures. For computational convenience, conventional methods aremainly based on earth-pressure theory. In the present work, nonlinearnumerical computation is conducted by developing elasto-plastic FEmodel in plane strain state, employing Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion todescribe the elaso-plasticity of subsoil and Coulomb contact pair theorywith penalty algorithm to simulate the discontinuous contact behaviorbetween foundation and soil, as well as using infinite element in modelboundary to avoid static boundary effects. The features of internalforces and deformation of double-walled cofferdam with steel sheetpiles at varied water heights are analyzed through comparativecomputations. Based on computational results and theoretical analyses,several conclusion remarks are drawn to provide valuable referencesfor engineering practice and design.