Braced Cuts (consult Das)
Braced Cuts
• Deep excavations with vertical sides require lateral supports to
prevent cave-in of the earth and to protect the adjacent areas
against subsidence and lateral movement of the subsoil
• Many building sites extend to the edges of the property lines.
Under these circumstances, the sides of the excavation have to
be made vertical and must usually be supported by bracings to
avoid failure
• Excavations which are laterally supported are called braced cuts
Braced Cuts
Two types of braced cut commonly used in construction work
– Soldier beam – Sheeting
Braced Cuts
Uses of braced cuts:
To avoid considerable settlement or
bearing capacity failure of nearby
structure.
To stabilize cuts
To prevent water seepage into
excavation
Braced Cuts
• Soldier beam :- is driven in to the ground before excavation and is a
vertical steel or timber beam.
• Laggings are timber planks placed horizontally between the soldier
piles to retain the soil behind the excavated area
• For narrow excavations, When the excavation reaches the desired
depth, wales and struts (horizontal steel beams) are installed.
Soldier beams and lagging method used for retaining walls
Braced Cuts
• Struts are horizontal compression members
• Sheeting:- in this case, interlocking sheet piles are driven into the
soil before excavation
• Wales and struts are inserted immediately after excavation
reaches the appropriate depth
• To design braced excavations (i.e., to select wales, strut, sheet
piles and soldier beams), the engineer must estimate the lateral
pressure to which the braced cuts will be subjected
Lateral earth pressure in braced cuts
• Rankine’s and Coulomb’s theories of earth pressure cannot be used
for the pressure in braced cuts, as those theories are applicable to
rigid retaining walls rotating at base
• In contrast to retaining walls, braced cuts show a different type of
wall yielding. In this case, deformation of the wall gradually increases
with the depth of excavation
• The variation of the amount of deformation depends on several
factors , such as the type of soil, depth of excavation and the
workmanship
Lateral earth pressure in braced cuts
Apparent Pressure Diagrams
• After observation of several braced cuts, Peck (1969) suggested
using design pressure envelops (apparent pressure envelop)
A. Sand, =0.65Hka
where =0.65HKa H
Ka is Rankine active earth
pressure coefficient
Pressure Envelope For Sand
B. Clay, soft to medium stiffness
Clay, soft to medium stiffness 0.25H
𝜸𝑯
i𝒇 >𝟒
𝑪
𝟒𝑪
= 𝑯 𝟏 – or 0.75H
𝜸𝑯
=0.3 H
which ever is the bigger
Pressure Envelope for Cuts in Stiff Clay
0.25H
𝜸𝑯
𝑰𝒇 <𝟒
𝑪
= 0.2H to 0.4 H
• Purposely for design, 0.5H
average is taken
0.25H
Design of Various Components of a Braced Cut
Struts
• Should have a minimum vertical spacing of about 9 ft (2.75 m) or more.
• Actually horizontal columns subject to bending
• The load carrying capacity of columns depends on the slenderness ratio.
• The slenderness ratio can be reduced by providing vertical and horizontal
supports at intermediate points
• For wide cuts, splicing the struts may be necessary
• For braced cuts in clayey soils, the depth of the first strut below
the ground surface should be less than the depth of tensile crack, zc
1. Draw the pressure envelope for the braced cut
2. Determine the reactions for the two simple cantilever beams (top and bottom)
and all the simple beams between. Inthe following figure, these reactions are A, B1,
B2, C1, C2 and D
Example 1
a. The cross section of a long braced cut is shown in
Figure
b. Draw the earth-pressure envelope
c. Determine the strut loads at levels A, B, and C.
d. Determine the section modulus of the sheet-pile
section required
e. Determine a design section modulus for the wales
at level B.
(Note: The struts are placed at 3 m, center to
center, in the plan.) Use σall =170*103kN/m2
Cross section
Determination of reaction
Shear force diagram
Example 2
Example 3
Refer to the braced cut shown in Figure below for which, ϒ = 17KN/m3, φ’ = 350 and C’
= 0. The struts are located 4 m on center in the plan. Draw the earth-pressure envelope
and determine the strut loads at levels A, B, and C.
Solution
Heave of the bottom of a cut in Clay
Terzaghi analyzed the factor of safety of
braced excavations against bottom heave
What measure is taken if the FoS is less than 1.5?
Stability of the bottom of a cut in sand
• Piping - effect of dewatering of the water
inside the excavation
• Maximum exit gradient
a =length of the flow element at A (or B)
Nd =number of drops
Remedial measures when the requirement is not satisfied!
Thank you !!!
