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Diaphragm Walls
by
Presented at:
Central PA Geotechnical Conference
Hershey, Pennsylvania
March 23-25, 2006
05-01-145
Diaphragm Walls
Thomas D Richards, Jr P.E. Nicholson Construction Company
Central PA Geotechnical Conference - March 23-25, 2005
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to describe the application, construction process, and design methods
for diaphragm walls, since this topic has not been addressed much if at all at previous Hershey
conferences.
Diaphragm walls are a method of creating a cast in-situ reinforced concrete retaining wall using the
slurry supported trench method. As such, they are often known as slurry walls. However, the term
diaphragm walls
Concrete diaphragm slurry walls were first introduced in the United States in the 1960s, and have
found a niche in urban environments such as Boston, New York City, and Washington, DC.
APPLICATIONS
Diaphragm walls are most commonly used :
in areas with dense and historic urban infrastructure,
where a very rigid earth retention system is required,
where noise and vibration must be limited,
where the geology and groundwater preclude the use of conventional earth retention systems
and/or where dewatering is not practical
Compared to other wall types, diaphragm walls are considered to be very stiff with respect to
ground movement control (Clough and ORourke, 1990).
Diaphragm walls are often attractive in granular soils with a high groundwater level, especially
when a low permeability layer underlies the granular soils. The diaphragm walls are typically
terminated in the underlying low-permeability layer which can consist of soil or rock. Keying into
this low permeability layer reduces groundwater seepage below the wall. (Pearlman, 2004)
Projects that have used these walls include:
below grade parking/ deep basements
cut and cover subway tunnels
highways as cut and cover tunnel walls and for underpasses
shafts for deep sewers
dam appurtenances
landslides
For highway projects, diaphragm walls were employed extensively on the Central Artery Tunnel
and also have been used in Denver, CO and Baltimore, MD.
Cage Fab *
~120 x panel
depth
* The cage fabrication area is dependant on the number of rigs and production schedule.
** The plant are is dependant on number of tanks.
The slurry plant includes a slurry mixer, storage tanks, and desanding units.
Sufficient storage tanks must be used for bentonite slurry hydration, several panels of bentonite,
recycled bentonite.
Pretrenching
Pretrenching is often performed to remove shallow obstructions and provide stable support for the
guidewalls (next step). This pretrenching may be performed as open excavation backfilled with
flowfill or excavated under self hardening slurry.
Guidewall construction
Guidewalls provide a template for wall excavation and panel layout, support the top of the trench,
restrain the endstops, serve as a platform to hang the reinforcement, provide a reference elevation
Endstop Placement
Endstops are used to control the concrete placement so that adjacent secondary panels are not
excavating monolithic concrete. Endstops may be permanent or removed after concrete placement.
Permanent endstops are typically wide flange shapes. Removable endstops can be pipe (Figure 1)
or special keyway end stops (Photo below).
Cage Placement Note blockouts for floor slabs and trumpets for anchors .
Tremie Concrete
Tremie pipes are placed in the panel to within a foot of the bottom. Typically two tremie pipes are
used for full size panels and one tremie pipe is used for single bite panels. Concrete with 8 to 10
inch slump is then tremied into the panel.
The concrete mix is special to provide 4000 to 6000 psi strength with high slump and contains fairly
high cement content, often other pozzolans, plasictizers and often other chemicals.
Empirical Methods
Stress Analysis
Traditionally, apparent pressure envelope methods have been used successfully to design flexible
wall systems such as soldier pile and lagging and steel sheet-pile systems. The approach was
developed based on data from flexible wall systems, and typically assumes that the wall acts as a
simple beam spanning between the brace levels (Terzaghi et al., 1996). For the more rigid slurry
wall system, the pattern of wall displacement that develops during the actual excavation and bracing
sequence can have a major effect on the bending moments in the wall and the distribution of load to
the bracing/anchors. Hence, use of apparent pressure envelopes for design of stiffer systems can be
misleading. In general, apparent pressure envelope loadings are most appropriate as upper bounds
for cases that match the bases of the empirical data, which include cases with relatively flexible
walls and a stable subgrade.
The pressure envelope design approach is for a temporary support system and does not necessarily
provide the long-term loading corresponding to the permanent condition after the end of excavation.
When the temporary support system, such as a slurry wall system, is incorporated into the
permanent building foundation, a staged analysis that includes loading at each stage is required to
evaluate the built-in stresses and strains that are locked into the final structure at the end of
construction.
Movement Analysis
The use of empirical data for the evaluations of movements is a useful tool in evaluating potential
effects of a proposed excavation on adjacent buildings. Empirical data also allow the designer to
validate the general magnitudes and patterns of the results of more sophisticated analyses. The
empirical data can be used to estimate the zone of influence of the excavation as well as typical
magnitudes of ground movements for various wall stiffness and subgrade stability conditions (e.g.,
Clough and ORourke, 1990).
An introduction to construction methods was presented. Given the various options of permanent
versus temporary endstops, panel length and width, and the economics of these options; the final
design of the diaphragm wall is often done as design/build working in close cooperation with the
Owner, GC, and Engineers.
Design techniques that involve sophisticated soil structure interaction models combined with local
data and experience give a high level of confidence for predicting wall performance on projects
surrounded by other structures, where control of building movement and damage are paramount to a
successful project delivery. These models need to be calibrated to empirical predictions, and other
case histories of successful excavation support projects in similar ground conditions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most of the design section of this paper was prepared By Seth Pearlman, Mike Walker and Marco
Boscardin.
REFERENCES
Bonita, G. (2005) "United States Capital Visitor Center ", Proceedings of 21st Central PA
Geotechnical Conference - March 23-25, 2005
Clough, W.G. and O'Rourke, T.D., 1990. "Construction induced movements of in-situ walls."
Design and Performance of Earth Retaining Structures, ASCE GSP No.25, 439 - 470.
PLAXIS, 1998. Finite Element Code for Soil and Rock Analyses. Brokgreve and Vermeer, et al.,
(ed.), Balkema. Rotterdam, Brookfield, Version 7, A.A.
Pearlman, S.L., Boscardin, M.D., Walker, M.P. 2004. Deep Underground Basements for Major
Urban Building Construction, Presented at Geo-Support 2004, Jan. 28-31, 2004, Orlando,
FL.
Terzaghi, K., Peck, R. B., and Mesri, G., 1996. Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice, Third
Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 349-360.
WALLAP, 1997. Anchored and cantilevered retaining wall analysis program, D.L. Borin, MA,
Ph.D., CEng., MICE. Geosolve, Users Manual, Version 4.