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The studies of excavations in soft clayey soils are normally based on undrained total stress analyses. A better approach consists of taking into account the effects of consolidation during the excavation-bracing process and after the completion of the construction by means of coupled finite element analyses in effective stresses. In this paper, the geotechnical behaviour of a braced excavation in the soft soils of San Francisco (USA) is analysed, both during and after the construction period. Numerical analyses are performed with a finite element program, which incorporates the Biot consolidation theory (coupled formulation of the water flow and equilibrium equations) and soil constitutive relations simulated by the p-q-h critical state model. Numerical results are compared with field results.

A previous paper studied the stability of soldier-pile walls in clay under vertical loading using upper bound analyses. A classical Tresca yield criterion was assumed in that analysis. This paper extends that study by considering a tension truncated Tresca yield criterion in an upper bound numerical analysis of the problem. It shows that assuming zero tension soil strength has a significant influence on the values of the minimum soldier-pile resistance required to ensure stability.

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