SPW911 Point Loads - Applicable to Toe Pins/ Solider Piles / Point Loads

[Jack Walter]

I saw several questions on this site about applying point loads and modeling different walls in SPW911. I am open to feedback if there is a flaw in my logic.

SPW911 as produced by Pile Buck will model a continues wall. Occasionally you may want to apply a point load or find the required strength of a toe pin to the wall.

You can do this by applying cohesive soil layers to the program.

For example: Lets say you will encounter a layer of rock on your sheet pile wall and will pin the toe with metal piles or other means. I encounter this when designing seawalls in Florida. What you would do is apply a cohesive soil layer with a cohesion of 1000 psf at the elevation of the rock layer. In the graph output look for the shear acting on the wall directly above this cohesive layer. this will be the required capacity of your toe pin per linear foot of wall. You can then calculate the toe pin capacity by hand or excel.

For Example: Lets say you want to add a point load somewhere on your wall for whatever reason. You would apply a cohesive layer of soil 0.1' thick at the depth of the point load. set the cohesion and passive pressure coefficient to match the size of the point load acting on the wall per linear foot. Set the active pressure coefficient to zero and this will add a point load to this section of wall.

Another Alternate: Buy a different program........

-All The Best,

 

[DaveAtkins]

I use SPW911 for typical sheet pile walls (cantilever and tied), as well as soldier pile walls (Pile Buck has guidance on how to do this), but when I face something unusual like you describe, I use RISA-3D.

DaveAtkins