Study of the Mechanical Behavior of Retaining Structures and Adjacent Buildings during the Excavation of Deep and Long Pits

Abstract

Excavation of deep and long pits can cause strata deformation and settlement of adjacent buildings. The excavation of a deep foundation pit of a nearby building in Zhengzhou City, China, is taken as the research object. The foundation of the foundation pit is an independent foundation under the column, the depth of the foundation pit is 24.5∼26.3 m, and the support form of an underground continuous wall and four internal supports is adopted. The stress and deformation characteristics of retaining structures during the construction of deep and long pits and their impact on the deformation of nearby buildings were studied through on-site monitoring and finite element simulation. The analysis focuses on the effects of different excavation stages on adjacent structures, with the main conclusions as follows. After excavation, the underground continuous wall far from the building undergoes a “rotating-kick” displacement, while the underground continuous wall on the side near the building only shows a “kick” displacement. Adjacent buildings have little influence on the distribution of shear force and bending moment of the underground continuous wall of the foundation pit. The first horizontal strut experiences pressure, gradually shifting to tension as excavation continues, with the maximum stress reaching 3.6 × 103 kN. The second, third, and fourth horizontal struts mainly bear compressive forces, increasing with the depth of the struts. The building primarily undergoes settlement in the early stages of deep and long pit excavation. As the excavation progresses, the building points near the pit begin to bulge, but the building corners far from the pit continue to show settlement. During the excavation of the deep and long pit, the differential settlement of the long side of the nearby building first decreases and then increases, and the differential settlement of the short side changes from a slight decrease to a significant increase. The settlement evolution of the building is as follows: overall settlement ⟶ overall uplift ⟶ uplift of the side of the building near the pit ⟶ outward tilting away from the pit. The findings may provide references for designing, constructing, and operating deep and large foundation pits.