Analytical evaluation of deformation behavior of cantilever type retaining wall using large diameter steel tubular piles into stiff ground

Steel pipe pile walls are utilized for many projects in Japan. If the stiffness of the embedment ground is high, the cantilever type structure can be applied for high retaining wall using large diameter steel pipe piles with high flexural rigidity. In the design of large diameter pile wall, a conventional method used for small height flexible sheet pile walls is adopted. However, this method may not be rational to high retaining height large diameter steel pipe wall. A critical concern in the conventional method is requirement of minimum embedment depth. In this paper, the behavior of walls with large-diameter piles embedded into soft rock was studied using a beam-spring model analysis and FEM, targeting the wall embedment length as the main parameter. From the comparison with centrifuge model results, it was confirmed that the retaining wall behavior can be evaluated by the analytical models and the minimum embedment length requirement by the conventional method could be over-conservative.