Centrifuge modeling of 200000 tonnage sheet-pile wharfs with relief platform

There is a great stride in the design and building of sheet-pile wharfs in China from 35000-tonnage before the year of 2000 to 200000-tonnage at present. Two design schemes are proposed to verify a 200000-tonnage sheet-pile wharf with relief platform. One has the rigid front wall of the reinforced concrete diaphragm of T-shaped cross-section with relief platform of 2 rows of vertical cast-in-place piles. The other has flexible front wall of composite steel pipe pile with relief platform of 3 rows of vertical cast-in-place piles. Two series of geotechnical centrifuge tests are carried out to investigate the performance of the sheet-pile wharf. It is shown that the two design schemes are verified to be feasible in that the front wall displacement is within the allowable limit. The response of the wall bending moment of the front is greater for the former scheme than for the latter scheme, whereas the displacements of the front wall at anchorage, the internal forces of tie-rods and the maximum bending moments of cast-in-place piles are smaller for the former scheme than for the latter scheme. The load transfer mechanism between the internal sheet-pile structure with a single anchorage and the pile group with relief platform is fully revealed from the above-stated shift of bending moment response intensity between the front wall and the cast-in-place piles.