Indian Geotechnical Conference 2010, GEOtrendz

December 1618, 2010

IGS Mumbai Chapter & IIT Bombay

Reliability Based Optimum Design of Sheet Pile Wall Using

a Simple Optimization Tool
Das, M. R.

Das, S. K.1

Assistant Professor
e-mail: manasdas.iter@gmail.com

Associate Professor
e-mail: saratdas@rediffmail.com

Department of Civil Engineering, ITER Bhubaneswar

1
Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Rourkela

ABSTRACT
Sheet pile walls are frequently used for retaining small height of soil in river protection walls, excavation and as
temporary supports in foundation construction. Uncertainties in the geotechnical design exist in estimating in situ
engineering soil properties and determining subsoil profile and boundary conditions. The traditional way of
dealing with the uncertainties is to use conservative values of the uncertain quantities and/or safety factors.
Owing to the uncertainties in the backfill soil and foundation soil properties, depth of the water table, the assessment
of stability of sheet pile walls needs to consider uncertainties in design. Reliability based optimum analysis of
sheet pile walls is useful in this context. The optimization tool based on spread sheet based method presented in
this paper for steel sheet pile wall in sand or clay which is cost effective and yet does not compromise the reliability/
safety of the sheet pile wall.
1. INTRODUCTION
Sheet pile walls is one of the most common type of flexible
earth retaining structure and as construction of sheet pile
wall does not require dewatering it has an edge over the
other earth retaining structure particularly for continuous
water front wall structures, river protection walls,
excavation and temporary supports in foundation with high
ground water table. There are two primary types of sheet
pile walls; cantilevered sheet pile that derives its support
entirely through the interaction with the surrounding soil
and anchored sheet pile that derives its support through a
combination of interaction between the surrounding soil
and one or more mechanical anchors. Compared to
extensive research on earth pressure on rigid retaining wall,
limited studies have been made on the earth pressure on
sheet pile wall (Bica & Clayton 1998, Endley et al. 2000,
Madabhushi & Chandrasekaran 2005, Tan & Paikowsky
2008).
2. RELIABILITY BASED OPTIMUM DESIGN OF
SHEET PILE WALL
Optimum Design
Economy is an essential part of a good engineering design
and needs to be considered explicitly in design to obtain

an optimum section. Very often it is over designed with

hardly any consideration for optimum dimension. Although
the optimization techniques in structural design have been
studied and developed since long, still it is being used in
large offices and projects due to sophisticated skill required
for the same. However, it is important that the optimization
schemes should be followed in small offices for the optimal
design of different structural components. Nevertheless, for
design of small structures like sheet pile wall, use of very
elaborate optimization method is not required. Keeping this
in view, spread sheet software, Microsoft Excel@ and its
solver tool for optimization has been used for optimum
design of footing (Wang & Kulhawy 2008).
Reliability Based Design Optimum (RBDO)
The above optimization technique considers only the
deterministic values of the design variable. However,
uncertainty in the soil parameters is inherent due to its
formations and change in behaviour due to effect of natural
elements on the soil (Phoon & Kulhawy 1999). Traditionally
used factor of safety is not sufficient for risk assessment
(Duncan 2000). Hence, the probabilistic analyses are being
developed to take care of the uncertainty in the design
parameters. Low (2004), Babu & Basha (2008), etc. have
developed reliability based optimum design of geotechnical

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M.R. Das and S.K. Das

structures. RBDO problems may be classified into three

broad categories: minimization of the cost subject to
structural and reliability constraints, maximization of the
reliability subject to structural and cost constraints,
minimization of the discrepancy between the reliability and
selected target reliability subject to structural and cost
constraints. Low (2004) has used the maximization of the
reliability using spread sheet based optimization techniques,
whereas Babu & Basha (2008) have used the target
reliability based design optimization (TRBDO) using
Lagrangian concept of constrained optimization method
in MATLAB environment. In this study and attempt has
been made to design TRBDO of anchored sheet pile
penetrating sand and clay using spread sheet based
optimization method, MS EXCEL Solver. The target
reliability based optimum design has been compared with
that obtained using reliability based design (Low 2004)
and deterministic based design optimization (DBDO).
Analysis
The sheet pile penetrating sand and clay are considered
following Das (2007) and as shown in Figure 1.

Parameters Used in TRBDO

In the present study nine parameters have been used in the
target reliability based design optimization of anchored
sheet pile penetrating sand and ten parameters have been
used for that in case of clay. Table.1 and Table.2 show the
statistics of the design parameters for sand and clay
respectively. The data is presented in terms of given value
as the mean value and standard deviation (SD) and
coefficient of variation (COV) values as available in
literature.
Table 1: Statistics of Design Parameters of Anchored Sheet
Pile Penetrating Sand

Parameters
Symbol Mean
COV (%)
3
Unit Wt of soil (kN/m )
16
3
19.5
3
Sat. unit wt sat(kN/m3)
Friction angle

30
11
Stress in steel
all
172500
0.58
(allowable) (kN/m2)
Anchor depth
l (m)
1.53
5
WT depth
L (m) 3.05
5
Depth to DL
L (m) 6.1
5
Depth below pt
of zero pressure L (m) 2.68
4
Section
S
0.008
10
Modulus (m3/m)

SD
0.48
0.585
3.3
1000
0.075
0.15
0.3
0.1
0.0008

Table 2: Statistics of Design Parameters of Anchored Sheet

Pile Penetrating Clay

Fig. 1: Sheet Pile Embedded in Sand with Dimensions and

Pressure Distribution (Das, 2007)

The Figure 1 shows the different dimensions of the

sheet pile wall, pressure distribution and the parameters
considered. The detailed derivation is not discussed here
and followed as discussed in Das (2007).
Similarly different parameters, pressure distribution and
the dimensions for the sheet pile penetrating clay is
shown in Figure 2.
l1
W a ter
le v el

Sa nd

l2

S a nd

D red g e l in e
E
Cl a y

Cl a y

Fig. 2: The Pressure Distribution and the Dimensions of the

Anchored Sheet-Pile Penetrating Clay (Das, 2007)

Parameters
Symbol Mean
Unit Wt of soil (kN/m3) 17
Sat. unit wt sat(kN/m3) 20

35
Friction angle
Cohesion
c (kN/m2) 41
Stress in steel
all
172500
(allowable)
(kN/m2)
Anchor depth
l (m)
1.5
WT depth
L (m) 3
Depth to DL
L (m) 6
Penetration
depth
D (m)
1.53
Section
S
0.007
Modulus (m3/m)

COV(%)
3
3
11
8.5
0.58

SD
0.51
0.6
3.85
3.5
1000

5
5
5

0.075
0.15
0.3

5
10

0.075
0.0007

The COV for unit weights have been chosen as per

Biernatowski (1985) and that for other parameters have
been chosen as per Low (2004). Standard Deviation (SD)
for different parameters has been calculated using the
established formula SD=Mean x COV
Methodology
The nine design variables for sand and ten design
variables for clay have been assumed to be normally
distributed. Their mean values are taken as the starting
values for optimization. The standard normal vector [nx]
is determined using the Eq. (1):

Reliability Based Optimum Design of Sheet Pile Wall Using...

1067

[nx ]= [(x*-)/SD]
(1)
Where, x*=Value of the variable
= Mean value of the variable, [nx] is a column vector
The correlation matrix in case of sheet pile penetrating
sand is of order 9 x 9 and that in case of clay is of order 10
10. The correlation coefficients between variables are
carefully chosen so that correlation matrix is positive
definite as per Low (2004). Reliability index () is
determined using the Eq. (2):

most economical value is obtained for TRBDO with target

b value of 4.0. It was observed that higher values of design
variables using RBDO and DBDO are due to higher b values
for the same. Due to above it was also observed that
probability of failure (P(f)) for RBDO and DBDO is very
less compared to that of TRBDO.
Similarly different design parameters for DBDO,
RBDO and TRBDO for the sheet pile penetrating clay are
shown in Table 4. In this case also it can be seen that there
is a variation in design variables for different case with
target reliability fixed at 4.0 for TRBDO. It can be seen
that the TRBDO is better than the DBDO and RBDO in
terms of cost, with acceptable b value. In case of DBDO
and RBDO, the P(f) values are found to be very low at the
cost of higher values of embedment depth,total length of
the sheet pile and minimum section modulus.From the two
tables it is also evident that total length of sheet pile
penetrating sand and its embedment depth is more as
compared to that in case of clay.However, at this point it
may be mentioned here that it is utmost requirement for
the professional to consider the appropriate b and design
as per TRBDO.The results duly emphasize the relevance
of TRBDO in terms of economy as compared to other design
approaches within tolerable limits of risk factor.

= Min

[ nx] [R]

[nx]]

(2)

Where, R is the correlation matrix.

In case of reliability based design optimization is
minimized invoking Solver which is inbuilt in MS EXCEL
setting the performance functions to zero .Other constraints
are also satisfied and optimal solution is obtained. In case
of TRBDO, a target is set for (as a constraint) and
performance function is minimized while satisfying other
constraints. The probability of failure (P(f)) is determined
using the inbuilt function NORMSDIST of MS EXCEL.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the TRBDO are compared with that obtained
in RBDO and DBPO and values obtained using trial and
error (Das 2007). The results for sheet pile penetrating sand
and clay are given in Table 3 and Table 4 respectively.
Table 3: Optimal Values for Sheet Pile Wall
Penetrating Sand

Table 4: Optimal Values for Sheet Pile Wall

Penetrating Clay
Values as per
Type

Unit

Das
(2007)

1.6

Smin

m3/m

Values as per
Type

Unit

Smin

m3/m

kN

P(f)

Das
(2007)

DBDO

RBDO

TRBDO

4.10

4.97

4.397

4.09

0.0021

0.001

0.008

0.001

115

24

21.44

80.15

14.48

13.76

14

12.16

15.21

10.82

1.5E-52

1.3E-27

4
3.17E-05

Where,
D - Embedment depth
Smin - Minimum Section modulus
Smin - Minimum Section modulus
F - Anchor force
L
- Total length of the sheet pile
P(f) - Probability of failure

It can be seen that there are differences in design parameters

for the trial method, deterministic based optimized value
and the optimal value as per the reliability analysis. The

DBDO

RBDO

TRBDO

1.532

1.530

1.28

0.00110

0.00103

0.00101

0.001

kN

70.38

73.89

73.86

73.34

10.60

10.532

10.528

10.15

20.785

20.753

4.00

P(f)

2.98E-96

5.76E-96

3.17E-05

4. CONCLUSIONS
The present paper presents the target reliability based
optimum design of sheet pile wall penetrating sand and
penetrating clay separately. The results are compared
with generally used trial and error based method,
deterministic optimum design and reliability based
optimum design using a simple spread sheet based
optimization technique. Such a study will help the
professional to select the suitable design based on the
target reliability and cost involved. Further study on
achieving target reliability with optimized cost and
system reliability is being considered by the authors.

1068
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M.R. Das and S.K. Das

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