Performance Monitoring and

Numerical Modelling of a Deep

Circular Excavation

Tina Schwamb
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge

This dissertation is submitted for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Jesus College February 2014

Fr meine Eltern
 Declaration

I hereby declare that except where specific reference is made to the work of
others, the contents of this dissertation are original and have not been submitted
in whole or in part for consideration for any other degree or qualification in
this, or any other University. This dissertation is entirely the result of my own
work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration,
except where specified in the text. This dissertation contains fewer than 65,000
words, excluding table of contents, tables, figures, titles, footnotes, references
and appendices and 150 figures.

Tina Schwamb
February 2014
 Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my su-

pervisor Prof. Kenichi Soga. His patience, motivation and detailed approach
contributed significantly to this thesis and I am immensely thankful to have
him as my supervisor.
I would like to thank Dr. Mohammed Elshafie and Prof. Robert Mair for
their initiative and support with the field study and for their encouragement
and advice throughout the course of my PhD studies. Many thanks also go
to my thesis examiners Prof. Malcolm Bolton and Dr. Andrew McNamara for
providing valuable suggestions and corrections.
Without my MSc supervisor Dr. Michael Brown and my close friend and
MSc classmate Marianna I would probably not have reached this point. Thanks
to their assurance and encouragement I applied to Cambridge.
I could not have done the field work without the invaluable help of the
fibre optic team. The hard work and long days on site were more fun with
the company of Chang Ye Gue, Dr. Fei Wang, Koson (Te) Janmonta, Dr. Loizos
Pelecanos, Masanari Nakashima, Njemile Faustin, Peter Knott and Seda Torisu.
Thank you all very much.
My sincere thanks go to JV MVB (Joint venture between Morgan Sindall,
Vinci Construction Grands Projets and Bachy Soletanche), AECOM, SolData and
Thames Water, especially to Ba Dan Nguyen, Clotilde Boquet, Jean-Christophe
Galan, John Greenwood, Julian Gatward, Martin Stanley, Richard Sutherden,
Sivilay Sayavong and the site operatives for their help, support and cooperation.
The sometimes challenging problems I faced in my FLAC model seemed
much more manageable with the help of Krishna Kumar, Dr. Shun Uchida and
Dr. Yu Sheng Hsu (Mott MacDonald) and I am very grateful for their support.
Many thanks also go to Krishna Kumar for creating this LATEX template.
I would also like to thank Prof. Hongwei Huang, Dr. Dongmei Zhang, Dr. Fei
Wang and the other students in Office 729 at Tongji University in Shanghai for
inviting me to spend 3 months on an academic exchange and for the memorable
time I had there. Many thanks also go to Prof. Jun Jian and Dr. Xuesong
(Jonathan) Cheng for their kind invitations to Zhejiang and Tianjin University.
My time in the GRO would not have been so enjoyable without my friends
and colleagues. Thank you Ahmed, Cise, Denis, Djihan, Krishna, Leonard,
Osama, Ouge, Samila, Shun, Te, Tim, Yemi and Ziyad. I am very grateful for the
memorable time we spent together, for the support and encouragement from
all of you. Special thanks go to Rakshya for sharing all the ups and downs of
the PhD life while working side-by-side for almost 3 years.
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support I received from the George
and Lillian Schiff foundation, the Centre for Doctoral Training in Photonics
Systems Development and Thames Water to undertake this research.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, my boyfriend James and
my friends, for always being there for me, for their encouragement, support
and love.

viii
 Abstract

For the design of deep excavations, codes and standards advise to base estimates
of wall deflections and ground movements on empirical data. Due to the
limited number of case studies on circular excavations it is nearly impossible to
find comparable projects under similar conditions. Therefore designers have
to adopt conservative approaches, which predict larger ground movements
than probably occur in reality and thus lead to more expensive structures and
protective measures.
Further uncertainty is induced for diaphragm wall shafts. The discontinuous
nature of the wall due to the joints between the individual panels may cause
anisotropic wall behaviour. There is a complete lack of understanding if, and
how, the design of diaphragm wall shafts should consider anisotropic wall
stiffness.
The construction of Thames Waters Abbey Mills shaft in East London pro-
vided a unique opportunity to monitor the structural performance and the
ground movements of one of the largest shafts ever built in the UK. The 71 m
deep excavation penetrates a typical London strata and one third is in unweath-
ered medium to hard Chalk. The monitoring scheme included distributed fibre
optic strain sensing instrumentation and conventional inclinometers in the shaft
wall to measure bending and hoop strains, as well as wall deflections during
several construction stages. Further inclinometers and extensometers were in-
stalled around the shaft to monitor surface and sub-surface ground movements.
The monitoring results were then compared to the initial PLAXIS design pre-
dictions. A further numerical investigation was conducted in FLAC2D which
allowed a more flexible parametric study.
The measured bending moments during shaft excavation exceeded the
predictions mainly in the wall sections in the Chalk group. It was found that
this was caused by assigning a low cohesion to the Chalk to induce conservative
ground movements, so that the Chalk yielded in the analysis. In reality however,
it remained elastic and hence induced larger bending moments in the wall. For
future excavations in Chalk it is recommended to investigate the effect of a low
and a high cohesion of the Chalk on the wall bending moment.
The hoop strain measurements indicate that the shaft has undergone a
three-dimensional deformation pattern during a dewatering trial prior to shaft
excavation.
The parametric study on wall anisotropy suggests that the shaft wall be-
haved like a cylindrical shell with isotropic stiffness, where the joints between
the panels do not reduce the circumferential stiffness.
Further numerical simulations varied the shaft wall thickness and the at rest
lateral earth pressure coefficient in the Chalk. The results showed that the wall
thickness has a minor influence on its deflection and hence thinner walls might
be feasible for future shafts. The at rest lateral earth pressure coefficient of the
Chalk appeared to be appropriately picked with 1.0 in the initial design.
Above all, it was shown that wall deflections were very small with less than
4 mm. Correspondingly small ground movements were measured throughout
shaft excavation. Empirical formulas on the other hand predict large settle-
ments between 40 and 105 mm. Numerical predictions were much closer to
the measurements and showed that small heaves occurred due to soil swelling
caused by removal of overburden pressure. For future shaft designs it is hence
advised against the use of empirical formulas derived from case studies un-
der different conditions. It may furthermore not be necessary to implement
expensive large-scale monitoring schemes, as it has been confirmed that ground
movements around diaphragm wall shafts are minimal and that risks are low.
The findings from this study provide valuable information for future ex-
cavations, which can be applied to the shafts constructed for the forthcoming
Thames Tideway Tunnel project.