Analysis of the pile spacing and earth pressure of sheet pile walls based on the spatial soil arching model

Soil arching effect is an important premise for which sheet pile walls can exert strong retaining abilities. It has previously been found that the spacing of the piles and the earth pressure are two important factors to consider in the designing of sheet pile walls and are closely related to the soil arching effect. This research proposed a spatial soil arching model according to the limit equilibrium theory and soil yielding criterion. An innovative method of pile spacing calculation was developed based on the proposed model. In addition, when cohesion was considered in the proposed spatial soil arching model, it was observed that the current method for earth pressure estimation on retaining plate was also improved. Finally, the stability status of the soil between the piles was analyzed based on this study's spatial soil arching model. It was found that when compared to the previous methods, the proposed method had made fewer assumptions and conformed better in practice.