Seismic design of sheet piles. Brochure | 2021

Innovative Seismic Design Solutions for Sustainable Sheet Piling Infrastructure

ArcelorMittal is the worldwide leader in sheet piling technology, and always ahead in offering most innovative foundation solutions. Our products are extensively used worldwide for the construction of quay walls, waterways, flood protection barriers, mobility infrastructure projects and containment structures.

Our values are sustainability, reliability and quality assurance, leading to highest levels of stakeholder value creation and customer satisfaction.

We offer complete package solutions, based on our comprehensive and wide range of products and services, expert technical support from the early design stages of a project to its completion, customized fabrication, just-in-time delivery and after-sales services.

ArcelorMittal, as the global leading steel producer, aims at reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and steel sheet piles are a major contributor to the circular economy concept of “reduce-reuse-recycle”. 

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Introduction

Steel sheet piles are widely used for the construction of a variety of structures: quay walls and breakwaters in harbours, bank reinforcements on rivers and canals, urban infrastructures such as underpasses, as well as global hazard protection schemes. In each of these applications, sheet piles have proven their ability to effectively withstand the consequences of earthquakes in seismic areas. 

Commonly used seismic design methods are still considered unsatisfactory in many cases, especially for the steel-based quay wall structures where the application of these design approaches hampers a substantial potential for cost optimisation. 

SENER, an international maritime engineering group based in Spain, carried out a study to highlight the main features of advanced design of sheet pile walls in high seismic areas.

Dynamic design

The most suitable design approach for sheet pile walls in seismic areas is using dynamic calculations in FEM. This type of calculations provides precise information about the internal forces, the deformations, the increase of pore water pressures and the expected mode of failure to be prevented.

It also permits a correct consideration of other features like the hydrodynamic loading through added masses. Advanced dynamic design can allow up to 50 % cost savings compared to traditional pseudo-static design approaches.

Comparison of design methods

The study covers 3 cases subdivided to 11 sub-cases. 

  • Case 1: dense sandy soil, low acceleration level (0.10 g) and two seabed levels; 
  • Case 2: dense sandy soil, two seismic action levels: medium (0.30 g) and high (0.40 g), and four seabed levels; 
  • Case 3: clayey silty soil, high acceleration level (0.50 g) and one seabed level.

The main aim of the study is to evaluate the seismic design when using either the FEM dynamic method or the pseudo-static method. For this reason, the study checks the structural resistance of the front sheet pile wall. The service requirements in terms of allowable displacements are outside the scope of the study.

Conclusion

The results of the studies carried out by SENER highlight the importance of developing more advanced methods for sheet pile design. Unfortunately, the current European standards provide overly conservative approaches when dealing with sheet piles’ seismic design, and the rules for using advanced design methods like Finite Element Modelling are not clearly defined. 

This study clearly shows that accurate FEM dynamic design allows significant savings and yield economical sheet pile solutions even for cases not accessible with the traditional approach. If combined with a performance-based design, further savings can be achieved in a wider geographical range.