Anchored sheet pile wall failure plane

[HthrC]

Where should the failure plane of an anchored sheet pile wall be measured from? The Corps of Engineers' manual (see attached) indicates it is measured from the bottom of the wall, USS Steel shows it from the point of zero moment and I have been told verbally that it's from the point of zero net pressure. Neither of the manuals discusses it in the text, they simply label it in a graphic.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Take a look at the "Bending Moment Acting on Anchored Steel Sheet Pile Walls" portion of US Steel Sheet Piling Design Extracts located on my website. This section begins on page 52 of the .pdf document (the pages are not numbered) and has about 20 pages of impressive computations and (pre-computer age) graphical solutions. This info is the work of Dr. Hermann Blum, in 1931.

My take on this is that the calcs are a sophisticated way to determine the sheet pile's line of fixity. In the past, this was sometimes determined using engineering judgment based on soil conditions. Not too unreasonable, since the line of fixity is usually in a fairly narrow range: say 1' for the best conditions to 8' for really poor soil.

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