Abstract
When long steel sheet-piles are driven into sandy soil, their grips occasionally separate. A clear explanation has not been obtained regarding this phenomenon because it occurs in the soil. One of the purposes of this study was to clarify the deformation mechanism of the steel sheet-pile grip and to find out the factors affecting grip separation. Another purpose was to develop a sheet pile with a grip that does not easily separate during construction.
In this paper, the sand pressure occuring in the grip was assumed to be replaced by equivalent external force, so that the deformation of the grip by external force could be observed. This experiment showed that the separation limit of the steel sheet-pile grip is controlled by the dimension and strength of the root of the steel sheet-pile finger. The sand pressure at grip separation estimated by this experiment was the same as that estimated by the repetition of pile driving in the sand pit in the laboratory. From these experiments, a steel sheet-pile, which is strongly resistive to grip separation, was discovered. This steel sheet-pile can be easily produced by rolling.
