steel sheet pile wall

Steel sheet pile walls are constructed by driving steel sheets into a slope or excavation. Their most common use is within temporary deep excavations. They are considered to be most economical where retention of higher earth pressures of soft soils is required.

They have an important advantage in that they can be driven to depths below the excavation bottom and so provide a control to heaving in soft clays or piping in saturated sands. This is not possible with the Soldier pile which is also a more permeable structure. However sheet piles are more costly and less adaptable to hard driving conditions particularly where boulders or irregular rock surfaces occur.

Easy driving conditions are experienced in clays, sands, and clay-sand mixture due to the comparatively small displacement of soil. However they may permit large movements in weak soils and also effective de-watering is often required since they do not provide a watertight boundary. Seepage commonly occurs through the interlocks and this can be sufficient enough to cause consolidation of organic soils and soft silty clays, (compressible materials). For sandy soils raveling will not occur if the interlocks are tight, but driving sheet piles into loose sand can cause subsidence.