Mechanism of sheet-pile wharf with separated relief platform

The sheet-pile wharf with separated relief platform is a novel wharf structure designed and developed in China. Different from the traditional sheet-pile wharf with relief platform, the sheet-pile wharf with separated relief platform adopts a separated form of the relief platform and the front wall so as to avoid concrete cracks at head of piles under the platform induced by large horizontal displacement or differential settlement of the wharf and to avoid impact on its durability. With regard to this novel wharf structure, how to correctly understand the relief action of the separated relief platform and to grasp the rules of earth pressures acting on the front wall is the basis for the design of the wharf structure. The stress and deformation rules of the sheet-pile wharf with separated relief platform, the relief mechanism of the relief platform as well as the distribution of the earth pressures on the wharf structure are studied through numerical simulations of FEM. By comparing with the sheet-pile wharf with single anchorage, the deep-water sheet-pile wharf with separated relief platform is validated.