Model Experiments and Elasto-Plastic Finite Element Analysis about Seepage Failure of Sand Behind Fixed Sheet Pile

Abstract

Constructing civil engineering structures, temporaly or permanent water proofing sheet piles often are used. The stability of seepage failure are carefully applied to those sheet piles, although many troubles of seepage failure were reported. On this problem the predictive method of the deformation and critical water head is required. In this study we carried out the model experiments which were designed for studying the seepage failure of soil behind fixed sheet piles and our elasto-plastic finite element method was applied to verify the effectiveness. Terzaghi method is very famous method for this problem and Terzaghi method was investigated by experiments data. As a result, it was confirmed that elasto-plastic finite element method was effectiveness and Terzaghi method was useful for this problem.