Reliability analysis of nailing method in the stabilization of urban excavation - A case study of an Excavation in Tehran

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Soil nail walls are being used to support vertical excavations below ground level to construct one or two basements. Also, the variability of in-situ soil properties has a significant influence on the stability of the soil nail walls. Conventional methods of slope stability analysis are usually based on limit state analysis and factor of safety criterion. These methods do not take into account the uncertainties. In the present study, global stability, soil-nail pullout failure and nail tensile failure are chosen to study. Cohesion, unit weight and angle of internal friction of soil and ultimate bond strength along the soil nail and yield strength of nail are modeled as random variables. Computations of reliability are performed using MATLAB and RT software. For better understanding, a case of soil nail wall constructed to support a vertical excavation in Tehran is considered for the study and its stability is evaluated for three failure modes. This research aims first to analyze the reliability of nailing walls and validate it using the Monte Carlo simulation method. In addition, the effect of correlation between soil parameters and distribution of random variables on the reliability index was investigated. By sensitivity analysis, the importance of variables in the reliability index was investigated. Then, the reliability index changes were evaluated with respect to the safety factors. Finally, changes in the reliability index were studied by changing the length of nails and the diameter of the nails. According to the assumptions, the correlation between the soil resistance parameters does not have much effect on the pullout mode if the general failure and pulling modes of the nails have a significant effect and should be taken into account in analyzes, as well as the type of distribution of variables affects the reliability index and the choice of distribution type is important.

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References

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Amirkabir Journal of Civil Engineering
Volume 54, Issue 2
May 2022
Pages 475-494

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