Global buckling mechanism of sheet piles

Abstract

For the design of a steel sheet pile, verification checks should be done on multiple failure mechanisms. One of the failure mechanisms which should be checked is the check on global buckling. This is a mechanism in which the deformation of the pile is enlarged due to the normal or vertical force. With the enlargement of the sheet pile, the soil must be displaced as well, which results in extra resistance against global buckling. However, the check to this mechanism stated by the Eurocode is based on the so called critical global buckling load, which is currently based on the stiffness of the sheet pile. The resistance delivered by the soil is fully neglected in the check on global buckling, which gives that it is thought that this check is too conservative. It is studied how the influence of the soil can be taken into account to the global buckling mechanism. This is done by describing the background of the current check, followed by stating possible methods to determine the influence of the soil. By the use of calculation program’s D-sheet pilling and Plaxis 2D, some examples are calculated in which the proposed methods are compared with the current method. From those examples, it was found that the check on global buckling might be significant lower if the influence of the soil is taken into account.