A Numerical Comparison of the Behavior of a Braced Excavation Using Two and Three-Dimensional Creep Plastic Analyses

Current study deals with investigating the effects of both time factor and the selection of a constitutive model type on predicting deformations of an excavation braced by nailing using two and three-dimensional finite element analyses. In addition, the effects of stress path and the type of defined initial conditions of the analytical model on deformations of the floor and walls of the excavation are also studied. Time factor, in the form of earth materials’ creep, can largely be entered into calculation of deformations of excavations by conducting viscoelastic and viscoplastic analyses. On the other hand, there hasn’t been done a comprehensive study regarding the creep behavior of excavations through comparing the results of two-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical analyses so far. The results showed that it’s largely possible to approach the actual deformation behavior of an excavation by considering the constitutive model of soft soil creep, SSC model, in the numerical plastic analyses. The effects of stress path on the deformation behavior of the excavation walls and excavation floor are investigated by using OCR stress ratio and POP stress difference; These two factors, both of which are also analogous, represent a boundary value for swelling behavior of the excavation floor and an increasing rate for the deformation behavior of the excavation walls since the increase in OCR or POP is equal to the increase in the soil lateral pressure coefficient at rest.