The University of Queensland CIVL3210 Geotechnical Engineering Basements

Basements
Introduction
Over the past decade, the changing demands of the owners and tenants of high rise
buildings, restrictions on the above-ground height of buildings, and the requirement to
provide off-street car parking, have led to a proliferation of deep basements, and the
need for both temporary and permanent support.

This has become possible only with the introduction of new construction techniques,
which enable the sides of the basement excavation to be maintained stable without
impinging on the interior of the excavation.

Choice of approaches and technique depends on:

Ground conditions.
Depth of the basement.
Constraints imposed by the logistics of the particular site.

Excavation support systems

Battered shallow excavations; particularly in fill, soil, or fractured and
weathered rock.
Strutted or propped shallow excavations and trenches.
Local rock bolting of potentially unstable blocks of rock (unfavourably dipping
into the excavation).
Soldier piles, driven to refusal prior to excavation, with or without infill panels,
and with or without anchoring or bracing of the soldiers.
Continuous (touching) or contiguous or secant(overlapping) piling, comprising
a line of bored, cast-in-place, reinforced concrete piles constructed prior to
excavation and generally anchored as excavation proceeds.

Bored pile continious wall. Secant pile wall. Cased continuous

flight auger
(Photos from: Ground Engineering, 31, 6, 1998)

Steel sheet piling, driven prior to excavation, and subsequently either made to act
as a cantilever or anchored/braced as construction proceeds. Sheet piling is
common along river frontages. It may be extracted for re-use; not always a
straightforward operation. It is sourced overseas, and hence attracts a lead time of
about 6 months.

Dr Robert Day, The University of Queensland, 2009

The University of Queensland CIVL3210 Geotechnical Engineering Basements

Cast-in-place, diaphragm walls. Reinforced and anchored concrete panels,

which are appropriate where the sides of an excavation are relatively stable over a
2 to 3 m span, or where underpinning of neighbouring buildings founded at
higher levels is required. For shallow excavations requiring support, internal
props might be appropriate, and a permanent wall may be formed in segments by
this means.

Slurry trench excavator for diaphragm wall

construction (Ground engineering 31, 6, 1998)

Reinforced and anchored shotcrete applied to excavations in fractured rock, or to

localised areas of fractured rock in an otherwise stable excavation face.
Soil nailing

Problems
Basement excavation failures are very costly, and are not so rare. They can result
from:
Missing or misinterpretation of information on ground conditions, resulting in
inadequate design and/or selection of inappropriate construction techniques.
Difficult conditions encountered during construction, particularly
unfavourable water pressures.
Poor workmanship.
The range of ground conditions encountered may range from soft alluvial
deposits along river frontages and infilled creeks, through fractured and
weathered rock of variable dip, to relatively intact and unweathered rock which
requires little support.
Such variability can occur at the one site.
The presence of groundwater and/or surface water courses present special
stability problems.
The proximity of neighbouring buildings influences the choice of, and need for,
temporary and permanent excavations support. It also influences the choice of
bottom-up (most common in Australia) versus top-down (most common in the
older cities of Europe) construction, the latter being favoured where neighbouring
buildings are particularly movement-sensitive.
Different techniques often apply to temporary and permanent excavation support.
Anchors must be de-stressed as construction takes place. Permanent support must
make provision for the collection and removal of any seepage.

Dr Robert Day, The University of Queensland, 2009

The University of Queensland CIVL3210 Geotechnical Engineering Basements

Earth pressure on real walls

Continuum Soil Mechanics approach

The LIMITING values of earth pressure are given by:

Active pressure h = K a v K ac c
Passive pressure h = K p v + K pc c

The values of Ka and Kp depend on wall friction and adhesion, slope of backfill,
inclination of wall, and METHOD used to calculate it. Expressions and tabulated
values are given in standard texts (eg Bowles, 1968; Craig, 1992).

For sands and heavily jointed rocks, an effective stress analysis (long term) is usually
appropriate. For clays, both the short term (total stress) and long term conditions must
be assessed.

The ACTUAL value of earth pressure on the wall depends on the wall movement and
the initial value of the horizontal stress in the soil.

Relationship between wall movement and earth pressure coefficient

Kp

Pressure
coefficient

Ko
Ka
Extension Lateral strain Compression

Ka is typically about 0.3

K0 is typically about 0.5 (normally consolidated soil)
Kp is typically about 3.

Ka and Kp represent FAILURE or LIMITING conditions. They may not be reached

in practice. If movement of the wall is insufficient to develop failure, the soil remains
partly or wholly elastic.

Wall movement has a dramatic effect on the pressure distribution against the wall.

Dr Robert Day, The University of Queensland, 2009

The University of Queensland CIVL3210 Geotechnical Engineering Basements

Strutted excavations
The development of wall movement and pressure for a strutted or anchored sheet
piled excavation is complex. Strut, tie-back or anchor loads vary with the construction
sequence and type of support, and cannot be reliably calculated. Design is based on an
equivalent pressure distributions inferred from measured loads. (Terzaghi and Peck
(1967), Morgan, in Williams, 1988). These are equivalent total stress distributions;
with sands assumed to be drained and clays assumed to be undrained. The data from
which they are inferred were from deep (>6m) excavations.

Discontinuous Rock Mechanics approach

Applicable to rock in which the rock mass is strong, and joints and bedding plane
weaknesses dominate behaviour.
Potential planar and wedge failure mechanisms must first be identified, for a
particular rock face (eg Morgan, in Williams, 1988).
Shear resistance for each discontinuities must then be determined, - laboratory
shear testing.
Limit equilibrium analyses can then be carried out to determine support
requirements.
An expression for the active force Pa for the simple sliding of a wedge with c = 0
Groundwater effects may be included in the wedge analysis.

Finite element analysis

Finite element analyses may be used to incorporate the effects of wall stiffness,
anchor spacing, and variable soil and rock conditions. Most are based on an elastic
plastic model for the soil/rock. There is significant difficulty in assigning appropriate
material stiffness.

Deformations around excavations

Deformations, particularly around the excavation (rather than of the wall itself) is
more likely than stability to govern the design of basement excavation support.

Deflections are generally estimated by comparison with observations of similar

excavations. However, methods for calculating deflections are becoming more widely
used.
Deformations around excavations are influenced by:
o Wall movement - translation, rotation and bending.
o Ground strength and stiffness.
o Stress relief on excavation.
o Groundwater lowering.
o Timing of installation of support.
o Loss of soil (particularly sand), and overbreak.
o Reduction of soil volume; consolidation of soft clay, desiccation of stiff clay,
vibration-induced densification of loose sand.
o Localised slip of blocks of rock.
In soft/loose soils settlement occurs around an excavation wall.
In stiff clays and rocks a stiff highly prestressed wall may induce heave.

Dr Robert Day, The University of Queensland, 2009

The University of Queensland CIVL3210 Geotechnical Engineering Basements

An elastic analysis will predict movements at distances further from the wall than
is possible in practice. Elastic results for D/H > 2 should be ignored.
The largest SOIL deformations are associated with movement of the toe of the
wall. This should be avoided.
Horizontal movements of a structure have sometimes been observed to be more
damaging than vertical movements.
Stress relief in heavily overconsolidated clays and rocks causes large horizontal
movements.

Dr Robert Day, The University of Queensland, 2009